Juno News - What’s in the Twitter Files？ (Ft. Katherine Brodsky)

00:00:00.000 hello everybody and welcome to the rupa subramanya show it's a pleasure to have you here once again

00:00:24.000 here in ottawa we just survived another major snowstorm and expecting another one this weekend

00:00:30.320 um but on the upside it's going to be a white christmas there's no question about that 0.90

00:00:35.680 and speaking of christmas and the holidays i hope you're able to spend um that time with your loved

00:00:41.280 ones and and that you have a safe and happy holidays now back to today's show uh many of you

00:00:49.280 have been uh probably been following the recent revelations about important information that the

00:00:54.480 public had a right to know which was all but censored by the u.s government working hand in

00:01:01.680 glove with twitter uh you probably heard about the twitter files where twitter's new boss elon musk

00:01:07.520 has released confidential internal documents to a select few independent journalists like matt taibbi

00:01:14.880 and barry wise's free press uh which i'm associated with basically uh we've learned for example the

00:01:23.760 hunter biden laptop a story was effectively killed when it could have had an influence on the 2020

00:01:29.760 presidential elections we've also learned what many of us have suspected for and some of us have

00:01:35.440 actually directly experienced this including me which is twitter suspending and shadow banning

00:01:41.280 conservative voices and amplifying uh progressive liberal voices on their platform uh my guest today

00:01:47.680 is katherine brodsky a canadian journalist based out of vancouver uh who's written for various publications

00:01:53.920 such as esquire uh variety the guardian and the washington post among others uh katherine will help

00:02:02.320 us make sense of the twitter files uh elon musk and all of the shenanigans surrounding twitter and the

00:02:09.840 future of twitter where do we go from here uh so please welcome katherine to the show so katherine

00:02:15.200 it's a great pleasure uh to have you on the show um you know we've uh interacted quite a bit online and

00:02:21.600 uh it really is nice to have you here um and um um you've written for um may you know major mainstream

00:02:31.680 legacy media establishments like the washington post uh esquire magazine variety i think guardian um

00:02:39.680 and so on what what do you think of uh what do you make of the recent revelations um of the twitter

00:02:46.720 of the twitter files and also the fact that uh much of the mainstream media has ignored these revelations

00:02:53.600 what what does it tell us about where we are in the media space today well that's a really good question

00:03:00.000 i've been thinking about that a lot um

00:03:02.880 um i'm saddened honestly to hear that or to see rather that um they haven't really been covering

00:03:12.480 it or have been covering it in a very minimal way um and it tells me i've thought about it like why

00:03:21.920 why would they not cover it at all and i think a lot of it to me seems to be about polarization

00:03:28.000 um because a lot of the twitter files point to information that might come across as supporting

00:03:35.600 maybe um a narrative a particular narrative that conservatives were the ones being censored

00:03:42.560 and um you know the obviously the hunter biden laptop doesn't benefit democrats uh so that was a story

00:03:51.040 that was suppressed uh they're not too happy with the new owner elon musk

00:03:56.720 so i think all of these things combined are the are the main reason why they're not covering the

00:04:04.080 story it sort of doesn't benefit their side but the truth of the matter is it doesn't really

00:04:10.880 you know the reason that i care about this story is because it doesn't matter that it was

00:04:17.760 even if it was mostly conservatives that were suppressed uh it could have just as easily been you

00:04:24.720 know people on the left um i think it's wrong either way but you have to consider you know anybody can

00:04:33.040 be holding power at any time so today you know obviously at twitter um i think we looked at the

00:04:41.600 donations that were made by people who worked at twitter they were mostly to democratic organizations

00:04:47.680 so people at twitter i think it's fair to say we're mostly ideologically on the left um you know

00:04:54.960 today people are complaining that somebody like elon musk they appears to be more um friendly with the

00:05:01.680 right i don't know if that's necessarily true but let's say it is people are complaining about that now

00:05:07.600 so the tables can easily turn so the truth is the truth and people should care about that and

00:05:13.440 suppression of speech is something people should always care about yeah absolutely i 100 agree

00:05:18.960 with you um you know it is um fair to say that right now there's a great deal of uh distrust of

00:05:26.160 legacy media especially um um you know if you're on the conservative side um of the fence uh and you

00:05:33.280 mentioned uh a narrative um you know is in place that um uh you know that could explain why uh there

00:05:41.360 hasn't been really any coverage of the twitter files in the mainstream media uh because there's

00:05:46.480 a progressive liberal narrative that is put forward and a and conservative points of view

00:05:51.200 are either largely suppressed or ridiculed um you know you you as a freelance writer who's worn many

00:05:57.520 hats um how do you think that we how do you think we go forward with this and restore the public's

00:06:03.680 trust in the media you know after all it's a key element of a well-functioning democracy

00:06:09.120 yeah it's interesting i mean i don't some people don't think it's possible i think some people

00:06:14.880 think that people well and i think that some people will never trust legacy media again they

00:06:20.320 they feel that they've been lied to i try to be a little bit more optimistic but it would take a great

00:06:26.960 deal of effort i do think there are some new institutions that are being built uh i know you're

00:06:32.080 part of a of a new institution that's being built in terms of media companies uh i think having more

00:06:38.400 independent voices is part of the answer having more media organizations that hold other media

00:06:44.640 organizations and scrutinize them is part of the answer having more diversity of voices and hiring

00:06:51.280 people who and again the word diversity i think often gets misunderstood as uh you know often is a

00:06:58.160 racial thing but it's really about backgrounds and and backgrounds you know our ideological views and

00:07:04.720 and you know maybe immigrant backgrounds and uh ages so having as much variety of opinions uh and and

00:07:13.440 intentionally hiring that kind of diversity is i think is important i think some organizations

00:07:20.560 i am starting to get a sense of how that they have some set idea that this is not working and they

00:07:28.880 they are straying in the path and they're losing readers but that recognition is so minor at this

00:07:36.560 point i think they aren't quite looking at themselves in the mirror and until they're able to do that

00:07:45.440 they're not going to be able to fix these problems i think this adherence to um the principles and ethics

00:07:53.600 of journalism is something that's not being instilled and part of that is um so i don't think you can be

00:08:00.960 a hundred percent objective objective perhaps but you should strive for that and that's not happening

00:08:08.320 because a lot of journalists see themselves as activists first and i think especially newcomers um

00:08:14.480 newer journalists in particular yeah i mean as as someone who is part of the independent media space

00:08:20.880 uh myself i um uh you know i tend to be a little uh less optimistic i mean i i'm optimistic about the

00:08:29.280 independent media space but i still feel that the traditional media space the legacy media space is still

00:08:35.040 pretty powerful um they still have uh a reach that um you know some of us in the independent media space

00:08:43.040 don't have like if the twitter files uh made it to the front page of the new york times let's face it it's

00:08:48.640 going to get a lot of attention uh and uh so we can't just dismiss the establishment media um you

00:08:55.040 know just like that um so does it matter that the mainstream media is not covering the twitter files

00:09:01.600 um and essentially suppressing this i mean um you know is this is this information going to go out

00:09:06.720 anyway and uh and and we'll have the kind of reach that uh say the uh you know or the impact that

00:09:14.320 the mainstream media would have had had they covered it no absolutely not i think uh the people who know

00:09:20.640 about the twitter files are such a niche right now because when i talk to people of my friends who

00:09:26.240 aren't really that active on twitter uh they don't know anything about it and they are kind of shocked

00:09:32.160 by it and and by the way that you know my friends are aren't conservatives necessarily uh or at all um they

00:09:39.280 do care actually when they hear about it from you know i think they're able to be objective enough to

00:09:45.600 understand the the importance of this and sort of the the outrage that people might feel about this

00:09:51.600 uh one of the key things that i felt came up uh actually in yesterday's um twitter files was that

00:09:59.600 uh the fbi was paying um twitter you know over three million dollars to you know work on uh

00:10:09.040 for their time on working on these requests that's a really significant thing and i think people

00:10:14.960 really ought to care about that but when it's not being covered by the mainstream it does not reach a

00:10:21.120 lot of people yeah they're not circulating in these um in these niches so as much as we can have you

00:10:28.000 know uh i was part of some spaces where we discussed this and you know we had a lot of people tune in

00:10:34.000 but uh and and you know people tweet about it but i don't think it's reaching um outside of that

00:10:41.680 yeah i mean i think it's still uh kind of uh stuck in an echo chamber right now i mean you don't even

00:10:46.800 have a very prominent um you don't have let's say barack obama weighed in on this right that would

00:10:53.680 that would get a lot of attention but you have some pretty significant prominent voices that are not

00:10:58.480 even weighing in on this and just remaining silent or looking the other way which is quite extraordinary

00:11:02.880 um yeah um so you know let's let's turn to um the man of the hour uh mr elon musk um uh who i thought

00:11:16.640 i tweeted a lot but uh you know i i literally have a notifications um alert uh uh you know so that i get

00:11:25.920 uh so i know what he's tweeting because he just added that and i realized just how much he treats

00:11:32.800 oh my goodness uh and uh so you know he's constantly tweeting but anyway um just let's go back to um you

00:11:41.360 know uh this this one controversy from last week i mean there's a controversy literally every day

00:11:47.360 and um and and then this one related to the uh blocking of accounts that shared a link to

00:11:53.760 i believe a bot account that shares real-time location of his private jet um now musk rationalized

00:12:00.400 it as a safety issue while his critics claimed that he uh was suppressing free expression um but

00:12:07.760 of course i mean let's let's face it i mean the irony here is that many of those critics applauded

00:12:12.720 uh the suspension uh of um uh you know conservative mostly conservative voices under the old regime

00:12:19.360 uh when the old regime did this um and um and so he's reversed these suspensions since what's your

00:12:26.000 take on this whole controversy oh yeah so i have both criticisms uh and really for both sides i would say

00:12:34.320 um so i i can understand elon's point of view with suspending the jet and and i'll also say

00:12:43.760 uh you know i'll just start by saying yes it's his company he can do whatever he wants but he bought

00:12:50.000 his company um with sort of these public statements of this being you know a public square that he's going

00:12:58.320 to make twitter 2.0 much better space more transparency better better everything he's going to fix the errors

00:13:06.640 of twitter 1.0 right so we do expect more of him that we expect of his uh predecessors so that's where

00:13:15.280 i'm sort of coming from with this when i judge his actions um in terms of sharing his private jet

00:13:23.920 i do think he has valid points and there's definitely a hypocrisy i'm sure uh their reactions

00:13:32.240 uh of of of of these uh journalists would be quite different if if they did not have the same attitude

00:13:39.120 towards him that said you know two hypocrisies or two wrongs do not make a right my issue with the

00:13:46.640 suspensions was more how how it was done not so much that it was done um he didn't really you know he

00:13:54.240 changed the rules and i actually tweeted to him you know do you mind well after he publicly

00:14:01.840 tweeted that he's changing this i said can you please put it in the tos and he just responded yes

00:14:08.800 and immediately after he put it in the tos and the reason that i was kind of insistent on that and

00:14:14.560 earlier in the day i was kind of tweeting criticisms about it because i think it's important when you're

00:14:20.560 making policy changes like that to make it clear to make it you know uh transparent make it accessible for

00:14:28.080 everyone and to apply it equally i'm not even sure you know there there are cases to be made for free

00:14:34.720 speech completely free speech i can live with that i can make those cases i can also live with moderation

00:14:42.400 but you have to sort of decide one or the other and if you decide on moderation which he has shown that

00:14:48.640 he is putting in at least some of that in in into twitter then you have to then make it clear what

00:14:57.440 the moderation policy is and then you have to make it communicate that very clearly to everyone else

00:15:05.120 make sure that other people know what the consequence is that they're notified

00:15:09.840 and uh and that the rules are applied equally to everybody otherwise you're doing what twitter 1.0 did

00:15:16.880 yeah no i 100 agree with you i uh took out a thread um uh you know a few days ago precisely making

00:15:25.440 these uh making these uh points uh transparency is transparency uniformity these are absolutely

00:15:33.440 important uh uh you know with with something like twitter um but here's the thing i think musk at one

00:15:40.960 point said that he was a free speech absolutist i believe i'm you know i can't i can't trace the

00:15:47.040 source of this but i'm pretty sure i i you know he's tweeted that at some point um you know here's

00:15:53.280 the thing right i mean i'm i would say i'm a free speech absolutist myself but there is something

00:16:00.000 uneasy about uh revealing my or someone revealing my real-time location information right i'm not i'm no

00:16:07.120 celebrity but like i'd be extremely uncomfortable with the public knowing where i am where i eat

00:16:13.440 you know these are this is nobody nobody's business except mine and um so you know there's this question

00:16:20.800 there's this tension between my right to privacy versus your right to free speech um but the thing

00:16:27.680 with the jet tracking of his jet is that from my understanding of this is that um all of the information

00:16:34.480 that went into this uh is publicly available so anyone really with a strong it background or computer

00:16:40.640 science background could uh could could possibly recreate it and and and and plus here's the thing

00:16:46.960 it's it's already on other platforms i think it's on instagram perhaps it's on facebook i'm not sure

00:16:52.960 um so you know where where do you where do you stand on this uh on this uh debate like i mean this this

00:17:01.200 this you know we we had the princess diana tragedy right when she was hounded by the paparazzi and that

00:17:06.720 led to her death uh yeah and and you know and and so that's one example of this but uh but really i

00:17:13.120 mean what are we talking about here yeah i i i've looked into both sides of this argument quite a bit

00:17:19.520 because you know i was trying to decide what is really fair in an objective way i am i tend to stand

00:17:26.080 and i'm very pro-privacy and i don't think free speech sort of trumps that uh because i don't you

00:17:33.280 have to justify the value especially if you're a journalist reporting on this for example sharing

00:17:38.960 a direct link to this information there is no journalistic value to that in my view you can report

00:17:46.240 on it without sharing that link and i and i've said this to the journalists who were involved in this um

00:17:52.480 but but um i have also asked people okay what's the value of of this information in general and

00:17:59.600 and there are some reasons you know environmental you know to see if there are meetings so there could

00:18:04.880 be sort of news value to this information but in terms of this being public information it's a little

00:18:12.880 bit deep so there's a few things at play here one um the jet information is public but what was done

00:18:20.960 by the person who has the twitter had the twitter account was that he um had figured out somehow

00:18:29.600 the wing number so so that's while technically i believe is still legal was a little bit dubious

00:18:39.280 and two uh you're also massively amplifying this so there's a lot of information actually within the

00:18:46.560 public domain and i used to work at an investigative agency so actually was a researcher and there are

00:18:52.240 some tools that you have available to you that are you know you only have it available because you're

00:18:56.560 working sort of in the law enforcement side of things and some tools that people just don't know

00:19:02.080 very much about are available to anybody but if so i can figure out quite a bit of information about

00:19:10.640 someone that that person would probably consider extremely private but then if i post it to you

00:19:17.520 know 500 000 people or a million people i do consider that a form of doxing but it's is it illegal under

00:19:27.440 the law that's tricky i guess right now it is maybe not considered to be so that's something that becomes

00:19:34.160 an issue that maybe policy and law lawmakers need to look into because we have a very changing world

00:19:40.640 and maybe the laws didn't quite keep up with it uh because we didn't have social media we didn't have

00:19:45.600 these like massive amplification tools so we never really considered these things um so i think this

00:19:52.240 is one of these situations so i think elon was within his rights to sort of uh create this new rule

00:20:00.080 even if he did created kind of as a response to what was going on with him but he should have done

00:20:07.840 it in a very different manner in my in my view and the suspensions should have been better communicated

00:20:14.960 and actually they probably should have gotten you know strikes the links should have been deleted

00:20:20.000 um unfortunately the journalist then said you know it's because we've cr the narrative that went around

00:20:25.040 is it's because we criticize elon you know which is clearly not true because if you just logically

00:20:32.480 think about it there are so many people on criticizing elon i criticize yeah i point out like i criticize

00:20:39.920 elon i say good things i also say really bad you know i certainly criticized him still there yeah no

00:20:46.560 absolutely i mean that that that was a little strange that they would uh come to that uh conclusion but

00:20:53.200 but then again you know we're back to this narrative building right uh and uh elon is certainly seen

00:20:59.120 as uh kind of um closer to the conservative conservative side of things than the liberal

00:21:04.640 side of things at this point uh you know one of the criticisms of the old regime um old twitter

00:21:10.800 regime was that when they suspended um accounts uh the reasons were often very murky and arbitrary

00:21:18.160 um i think that despite all of the sort of the shenanigans recent shenanigans and controversy

00:21:25.200 surrounding twitter under elon musk i think i strongly believe he's brought in a greater transparency

00:21:31.920 uh to the new twitter and he's very open about how certain accounts are suspended whether one agrees

00:21:38.080 or not um but here's the thing he's you know rather than sticking to fixed rules and we spoke about

00:21:44.160 transparency and uh and uniformity earlier he's you know he's allowed certain important decisions to be

00:21:51.280 guided by twitter polls um and now there's this uncertainty handing over twitter yet again because

00:21:57.360 a poll on his own leadership suggested that the majority wanted him to go what what do you make of

00:22:02.320 this approach do you think there ought to be fixed rules or or as he suggests uh the public should have a

00:22:08.800 voice on such decisions in such decisions well hey he could certainly do whatever he wants but my view is

00:22:18.480 um the public should be consulted but the public should not be making decisions via paul um i would love

00:22:27.760 to know i would love to have a conversation with him about it um i think that um i love the fact that he

00:22:37.120 will talk to people about it but sometimes his decision making at least appears to be incredibly

00:22:44.960 spontaneous like somebody will say something and he just kind of goes and does it but i think and that's

00:22:53.440 sometimes that could lead to brilliant outcomes and you never know and sometimes you hesitate to stop

00:23:00.240 somebody like that because you don't know what the end result of that will be because that is so

00:23:07.040 irregular and it could lead to something extraordinary but at the same time what it also

00:23:12.720 does is builds a certain distrust and chaos chaos that might make users feel very uncertain unsure and

00:23:21.440 stable and that's not necessarily a good thing especially for people who've been on the platform for

00:23:26.960 a long time if they built large followings invested a lot of time created content so i think it's

00:23:34.080 problematic and doing it by pull like what i do love and i think if i was in a similar position i i would

00:23:41.440 probably follow a similar model is like i would love to consult people and get sort of okay what are

00:23:47.680 the drawbacks what are the but you you know somebody said to me i just remember i had a script i once

00:23:54.320 wrote and i sent it to a bunch of people for feedback and i sent it to a certain actor and

00:24:02.000 i sent him this first draft and then based on the feedback i got from everyone else i rewrote it

00:24:07.520 and then i sent him the new draft and said oh don't read the first one read the second one

00:24:11.680 uh the rewrite and he wrote me back and he said i read them both the first one had magic the second one

00:24:19.440 something happened and i said to him well you know i got feedback from from all these people and i i

00:24:25.920 changed it up and he said no here's the thing if everyone's telling you the exact same thing maybe you

00:24:32.400 should listen to them but if everyone's telling you different things you have to listen to your own voice

00:24:38.720 that's very well said yeah yeah no that's uh that's a great analogy and uh very well said um

00:24:47.840 you know but sticking to this it's it's been suggested that twitter i i think there was another

00:24:53.840 new policy that um uh came in a couple of days ago or maybe yesterday uh yeah that twitter blue subscribers

00:25:01.520 would be allowed to vote would be the only people who would be allowed to vote in these polls

00:25:06.480 which again seems to contradict his philosophy of vox populi vox dei um what's uh you know what is

00:25:13.120 going on here yeah well it you know i've been thinking about it depends on the the kind of twitter

00:25:20.080 he wants to have so it seems to me like he's trying to move away from this model and again it depends on

00:25:27.120 whether he made this decision in a very spontaneous way truly responding to this person and just hey yeah

00:25:33.200 that makes sense let's change this up to or is it a little more thought out and he's appearing to be

00:25:39.840 responding to someone but if he's just moving to this twitter blue model of uh what he's really

00:25:47.360 encouraging is a paid ecosystem and it isn't really the public town square as much yes he might allow

00:25:55.120 people with without blue check marks who haven't paid the eight dollars or whatever it ends up being

00:26:00.800 ten dollars in canada um to participate but you know we already know that their tweets are not going

00:26:06.800 to be very visible their user experience is is going to be completely different right yeah um so

00:26:13.920 it's it's moving away from an advertisement model and it's really becoming more of a capitalistic

00:26:19.840 more which you know he did pay 44 billion dollars for twitter and advertisers have shown to be

00:26:27.680 not maybe so reliable twitter was bleeding money uh but it is different from what he said he was going

00:26:34.160 to do yeah no absolutely um and and given all the recent controversy surrounding twitter uh under must

00:26:42.480 you um and you know back to this poll um where the where the majority of people said that he should

00:26:50.160 step down as ceo do you think he should stay on as ceo um or would it be better to appoint someone

00:26:57.920 um else as ceo and then he's just steps back a bit and tweets less i don't know you know what i i thought

00:27:06.480 i first i thought it was an emotional reaction you know because i i i could sort of relate to this i had a

00:27:13.200 similar on a much smaller scale but i had a similar experience so i really fell for this like

00:27:19.760 emotional and now and the more i kind of thought about him like you know this probably was not

00:27:25.040 because he he had a win-win situation with this poll um he probably was never going to stay on forever

00:27:31.920 because he has like three more companies to run uh so and he never said how long it would take he

00:27:37.600 doesn't have a successor apparently in mind right now so if people voted now um then he would just stay

00:27:44.960 on and eventually would just find a successor anyways if people say yes he'll bow down to the

00:27:50.800 will of people show himself to be humble and uh and eventually find a successor he'll just say well

00:27:57.200 i'm gonna do what the people will and show that he doesn't have maybe such a huge ego

00:28:03.040 and and take his time finding a ceo so i think that's where he was going with it in retrospect can't

00:28:09.520 can't read his mind but that's my guess yeah i mean i'm i'm kind of conflicted myself i think

00:28:16.880 he should stay on as ceo but i think he should tweet less and i think he should uh minimize his

00:28:22.720 interactions you know um and not i mean yeah he just needs to kind of people love it though that's

00:28:31.120 the thing i think yeah there's a group of people who love it and there's a group of people who hate

00:28:35.200 it and you're always going to split people yeah like what i think yeah i'm kind of with you but

00:28:41.520 then at the same time i also see what his behavior and actions do to another group of people where they

00:28:48.960 just absolutely um you know love it and so but but i think that hurts him and there's a part of me that

00:28:58.960 wants to manage this in a very traditional way where you know i do come from a communications

00:29:04.240 background so i'm like uh you know but how do you but i do think he could work with someone where

00:29:11.440 they can manage it where he could still be him yeah and and authentic because i think that's what

00:29:18.000 people respond to his seeming authenticity um yeah yeah yeah exactly i mean i think that's probably why

00:29:26.960 i want him to stay on a ceo because at the end of the day despite everything uh and there are many

00:29:32.720 decisions many of his recent decisions that i disagreed with and um you know and i was just like

00:29:38.720 you know you know just pulling my hair out because thinking how hard can this be but um i think his heart

00:29:45.920 is in the right place this is my sense um that he genuinely wants to create a level playing field

00:29:52.560 and um and you know and and you know wants to get as close to free speech as possible um with all of

00:30:02.880 the caveats in place right so i i do think that uh his heart is in the right place um and and i think

00:30:10.080 he's working very hard to get that but you know in the process he's going to be doing some dumb things

00:30:15.680 and he even warned us about that uh about a month ago but um but where do you see twitter going is

00:30:22.240 it um you know is it going to remain the premier platform that it is or do you do you feel that the

00:30:28.640 recent screw-ups mean that it'll you know start losing its value and start declining and some other

00:30:34.800 platform could potentially take over yeah i do worry that another platform could take over i think one thing

00:30:42.320 that i had you know i think one thing that elon is great as an innovation and that's what i was really

00:30:48.400 excited about so beyond just like the free speech side of things and um one thing that i cared about

00:30:53.760 is also like the censorship of what was you know dubbed misinformation um i i cared about also the

00:31:01.440 innovation aspect because i think elon was really it seems to have a plan to to make it a much more a

00:31:07.520 much bigger ecosystem you know for content creation and payment systems to reward that and and maybe in

00:31:14.640 payment system in general and so i think there was a way to make it much much bigger than what it was

00:31:21.200 much more than just a social media platform but uh what is also happening and this is my fear

00:31:29.760 you don't want it to become like an echo chamber the reason you know there's like the conservative uh

00:31:35.920 media uh social media platforms have you know like getter or uh true social and all of those they're so

00:31:43.600 they're such echo chambers right and they're so political and um and they're not like great

00:31:50.080 experiences because i think people want at least many people maybe not all people but many people do

00:31:58.240 want a place where they can meet and like maybe have fights over ideas or or convert and hopefully

00:32:04.480 conversations more than fights and um twitter was that as as much as like people like to rag on

00:32:12.080 you know uh conservatives might uh you know called liptards and and the left you know called

00:32:18.720 conservatives names too um like it's just um it was still something that i think they were both drawn to

00:32:26.560 and and you can find both there and there weren't the other platforms aren't like that and then now

00:32:32.320 everyone you know the people who are going to these new platforms they're generally leaving so they're

00:32:38.160 going to be kind of more let's say i think kind of leftist platforms so they're they're turning they're

00:32:43.920 becoming echo chambers and i don't think that's a healthy thing that and you're seeing that throughout

00:32:49.360 society in general so my fear is that twitter will become that if people start leaving so you're

00:32:55.040 going to get maybe some centrists staying there or maybe some people on the left who are just really

00:33:00.960 hard like you know like like me or you know who are really believers in free speech and exchange of

00:33:06.480 ideas but there aren't that many people like that unfortunately yeah um so it's just um so that's my fear

00:33:15.280 with it um but if he and and elon hasn't helped the situation in some ways because he i think he was

00:33:24.720 hoping to be not so polarizing in that way that he was sort of but but just even like who he he engages

00:33:32.880 with um you know he does seem to take a little bit of a side and i wish he hadn't done that i wish he

00:33:41.440 did stay a little bit more neutral um which you know i think people it's funny because if he'd done

00:33:49.280 the other way he wouldn't get criticized you know and and that seems a little bit unfair as well but

00:33:57.040 that's the reality of it yeah you know i don't have i mean i think he's he he's entitled to his views

00:34:03.440 and i think if he has a side that is fine uh but that shouldn't interfere in how he runs the company

00:34:09.520 right it should be a level playing field for everybody and i think that's the most important

00:34:14.080 thing so i'm not i'm not too worried about him taking a side or on an issue for it matter because

00:34:21.920 um because to the to the users because if they perceive it to be less friendly to a certain side

00:34:30.640 because of public statements that he's making whether his policies um aren't true you know if

00:34:39.360 if he's censoring certain you know suspending certain accounts they might perceive it as he's

00:34:45.600 only suspending these accounts yeah that may not be true but unless he's communicating very very clearly

00:34:52.800 that he's also targeting you know others yeah they may not believe it yeah i mean there's this view that

00:34:59.520 twitter is a private company they can do whatever they want no and no one is forcing you to use it and

00:35:05.600 if you don't like it as the old saying goes go create your own platform that doesn't always work

00:35:11.760 uh look what happened to uh parlor uh but um you know but there's also this view that social media

00:35:19.280 platforms like twitter are are unique uh in terms of what um you know economists uh you know i have

00:35:26.560 a training in economics um so what economists call network externalities so in other words a social media

00:35:33.760 platform is only useful is only valuable for you if you if if if other people are also on it right

00:35:40.640 you don't want to be on a platform where there are very few people a bit like what's happening to

00:35:46.480 mastodon right now uh so so in some respects um these social media platforms are a bit like a

00:35:54.080 natural monopoly uh which calls for government regulation what is uh what is your view on this

00:36:01.280 yeah that's a tough one i there are times where i've sort of been more inclined for government

00:36:06.800 uh intervention but then we also see what happens with government intervention i i don't know that i

00:36:13.120 trust the government very much at this point uh and they're not i mean because there are many social

00:36:19.360 media platforms so it's kind of harder to make the case for uh government interventions uh if we were to do

00:36:26.240 you know i'm much more inclined to make government or policies where it's like there should be a

00:36:33.440 a china wall between or i don't know if you're allowed to say that but there should be a wall

00:36:38.000 between uh government really and uh social media platforms that's much more of a policy that i would

00:36:44.400 want to get behind especially seeing the pressure i mean i saw that in i saw that as most concerning in a way

00:36:50.640 um when twitter had policies uh that were that i disagreed with well at least it was a company making

00:36:58.560 these policies but when uh for example during uh you know uh the pandemic um the white house was in

00:37:08.560 telling these uh social media companies what they should you know advising them quote unquote you know

00:37:16.320 even though they weren't like making it a legal um so they weren't it wasn't a violation of the first

00:37:23.840 amendment technically but when the white house comes to you or the fbi comes to you uh which is again

00:37:31.360 the same sort of thing was happening you know as the twitter file showed um that's not um not a violation

00:37:39.360 in my view i don't know if legally that case can be made but certainly morally and ethically

00:37:46.240 i think so um so i think in that way i i would like to see some legislation um there um but i think

00:37:56.080 um it's tricky because these these um companies are so big another thing i guess i would love to see

00:38:03.360 because um that that's more universally applied you build your followers right on these media social

00:38:10.400 media platforms and then you're you're stuck so in that way it becomes a monopoly because at any point

00:38:17.680 you're sort of at the mercy of these uh social media platform they can decide to suspend you bend your

00:38:23.600 account and then you you can't just um there's nothing you can do about it and actually that new

00:38:30.720 platform i can't pronounce the name is it mast mastodon yeah mastodon so apparently in the way that it's

00:38:38.720 structured is actually uh it's better on that side because you you sort of run your own server so you

00:38:44.720 could take it elsewhere so i think there is some uh benefits to that and if there are ways to solve

00:38:51.280 that problem that would make a big difference because it would force these platforms to compete

00:38:56.480 because you could move you as a consumer have the ability to move it's like uh it's the same thing

00:39:02.720 as with cell phone numbers you know before you used to be tethered so if you wanted to move to another

00:39:07.760 company you you lose your phone number uh but then they made a law so you are able to move your phone

00:39:13.440 number to another company so i think it should be sort of something like that i could see that being

00:39:18.320 illegal interesting so if you were to move do you take all your followers with you yeah well that that

00:39:25.040 would be something i mean this is you know i i have um thought about quitting twitter but not recently

00:39:31.200 though because it's just gotten exciting no but but at one point you know i was i was really um

00:39:38.000 disgusted with twitter because you know they i i i've had my account suspended a couple of times

00:39:43.280 i've been on it for a very long time i've been on it since 2010 and um and and you know and there was

00:39:49.280 a time when i was like you know i'm gonna go to another platform and uh but you know i had already

00:39:55.840 built like thousands of followers and i was gonna at risk of losing well i would have lost them lost

00:40:02.560 all of them and i would have had to start from scratch um and that's one of the um you know it's

00:40:08.800 a disincentive right for you to move to yeah you can't even do a push notification to tell them that

00:40:14.960 you've moved to another place and then and speaking of other policies like elon's um last thing was uh that

00:40:22.320 you know you can't even share links to other platforms so um yeah that's that is like uh

00:40:31.040 i i thought that was i thought that was one of the dumbest things actually i mean for someone who is

00:40:36.640 so incredibly successful and so incredibly um intelligent i thought that was that was just 0.75

00:40:44.240 dumb like i don't even know what he was thinking when he said that and it was um and i was you know 0.59

00:40:49.920 just taken aback by the whole thing and then his mother weighed in on this and said well you know i 0.98

00:40:55.200 you know i you know this makes sense because when i'm giving a presentation i don't i don't i don't

00:41:00.960 mention the competitors um in my presentation but we're not employees right we're users uh there there is

00:41:08.480 a distinction between the two and so it just didn't make any sense it pissed everyone off even like the

00:41:15.440 uh like the big big supporters of his like when i brought that up in conversations like even they

00:41:23.120 had a really hard time for the most part like defending it yeah yeah no i mean again i mean i'm

00:41:31.120 not i'm not in favor of uh suspending accounts like i mean there's this should should should he have

00:41:37.040 suspended kanye west's account like i i found his views appalling and beyond the pale uh but um you know

00:41:44.560 there is a question if you're a free speech absolutist and and he does claim to be one um

00:41:50.640 you know was that the right move um or or alex jones right i think that was one of the first

00:41:55.840 controversies actually um i i i think i think you know alex jones should be on twitter i mean i

00:42:03.760 you know as as uh reprehensible as i think his his views were and uh and what he stands for

00:42:11.040 at least he doesn't like hitler yeah well yeah i mean this is the thing you know and i mean this

00:42:16.880 is this is one of these um it's one of the great challenges of our time of our time where of our

00:42:23.440 times where no it's not clear cut right um uh and and and i think in elon's case he clearly is emotional

00:42:30.960 with uh with respect to alex jones his his uh um his his response was well you know i held my dying

00:42:39.120 son in my arms and uh you know and uh and i know what that feeling is like and uh and this is the

00:42:45.280 reason why i he'll never be allowed back on twitter and and this is the problem with bringing your own

00:42:51.920 person you know your emotions into um something as important as free speech which should be

00:42:59.280 distinct it should be separate well if you're an absolutist right like okay let's take uh kanye yay

00:43:06.400 whatever he wants to call himself like yeah i of course i absolutely find his views abhorrent what

00:43:12.320 he said like you know it's funny like i gave him some benefit of like maybe we don't understand him

00:43:18.160 in the beginning but it was very clear where he is at exactly gradually um and honestly i was i was

00:43:24.800 quite upset if any like i think he has the right to speech i i don't think people should have been um

00:43:30.400 inviting him on to shows and amplifying it uh because i think that was just uh you know that

00:43:36.400 was just to get clicks but um but i think in terms of suspending him um it was not at all consistent

00:43:45.600 with free speech so while i you know and i'm jewish i i you know certainly don't find this stuff

00:43:52.320 fantastic yeah but i think that most people would not uh hopefully well unfortunately quite a few

00:43:59.760 people love this uh as i've discovered but i think it still fits under free speech so if you do believe

00:44:07.280 in free speech absolutism uh that image that he tweeted um i i think it's hard uh i know that people

00:44:14.960 have tried to make the case that it incites violence because it's a hateful uh image but then you're you're

00:44:20.720 getting on an extremely slippery slope there um and so i i i think as much as i may not like the speech

00:44:29.120 that he had made uh if you do not believe in censoring free speech then he did not really have

00:44:37.280 a basis for um for uh booting him off the platform now if he wanted to have rules that's fine but then

00:44:48.160 it's not free speech absolutism yeah i mean it is it is very it is a very difficult subject i mean i uh

00:44:56.640 thought that i had my mind made up on these things but i'm uh being challenged every single day you know

00:45:02.320 where i stand on these issues and um um well you know catherine i've run out of questions but is there

00:45:08.320 anything you want to share with us um um anything at all no i i mean i i think a lot of these questions

00:45:17.760 are difficult i think what you said is it's important to note is is um uh it's it's something

00:45:24.800 that you do we change our minds like it's it's it's okay to change your mind and i think sometimes

00:45:31.040 people oh you're a hypocrite or you're this or that but you know what it's you think about things 0.63

00:45:37.440 you hear new information you hear new ideas new counter arguments and you change your mind and you 0.99

00:45:44.160 know i also changed my mind i i thought i was a free speech absolutist uh and then because i i certainly

00:45:52.160 have strong arguments for that and then other days i'm like well maybe not and then other days i go back

00:45:59.200 to being a free speech absolutist and on elon i i feel um you know some days i'm you know i started

00:46:06.960 off being kind of happy that he got twitter and then i was like oh no this is chaos i'm really not

00:46:13.520 happy at what he's doing and i'm like okay this is fine so i go back and forth on him a lot and then

00:46:20.240 i get attacked too because you know sometimes they say i say positive things sometimes negative things

00:46:26.480 but i've also said this i said listen i'm going to there i'm going to defend this billionaire

00:46:33.200 sometimes because if it's wrong if people are wrongly attacking him i'm going to uh defend him

00:46:38.160 because uh and other times if if he's wrong in what he's doing i'm going to um i'm going to

00:46:44.800 criticize that because you know at the end of the day the only allegiance is the truth and that's how it

00:46:50.320 should be and uh unfortunately a lot of people have sort of either cling to him being this like um

00:46:59.840 awful awful human being and i don't you know i'm trying to figure out what it is that people have

00:47:06.000 chosen to see him as the worst possible you know because i think if you objectively look at him

00:47:12.080 you can see there's been you know there are lawsuits there you know there are some certainly

00:47:17.840 negative things as as how he is maybe as a boss yeah um and he's also build amazing things and he's

00:47:24.640 brilliant and there's a sensitivity there and um so he's not you know and then there are people who

00:47:31.440 idolize him and he can do no wrong but he's a human being right so yeah you have to look at it in a more

00:47:39.600 clear-eyed way and uh and we have a tendency to sort of you know as a society there's this tendency

00:47:47.680 to be so black and white and not be willing to look at the grays um yeah absolutely i mean that's 1.00

00:47:55.360 that's one of the things that struck me about you um you know it's not just this but on a range of

00:48:00.320 different issues i've always seen you um you know be very balanced and objective and uh you know you

00:48:07.440 might take a side but you you know you consider all points of view and um uh and especially with uh the

00:48:13.840 twitter file uh with with what's been happening with twitter yeah you have the um you have the

00:48:18.960 fanboys and then and then you have the haters uh you have these two extremes but there are very few

00:48:25.840 few people in the middle um who are you know who are uh who are you know like you who are who are

00:48:32.960 trying to be as objective as possible and that's great and that's one of the reasons why i wanted you on

00:48:38.800 my show and um so i'm i'm glad that you that we had this conversation katherine i really appreciate

00:48:45.280 having a chance to talk to you and i've i've always enjoyed following your work oh thank you no that

00:48:51.120 that means a lot i mean it's been a great pleasure having you on the show and i i um and i'm sure our

00:48:58.640 viewers uh also uh appreciate uh your insights um so i'm afraid we'll have to leave it at that but i hope you

00:49:06.080 have um great hanukkah uh christmas and new year and uh and i would love to have you back again soon

00:49:12.720 i'd love to thank you so much lovely talking to you

Juno News - December 22, 2022

What’s in the Twitter Files？ (Ft. Katherine Brodsky)

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