Making Sense - Sam Harris - December 30, 2022


#307 β€” Twitter, Elon, & Free Speech


Episode Stats

Length

27 minutes

Words per Minute

148.23428

Word Count

4,143

Sentence Count

229

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

5


Summary

The end of my year was marked by, among other things, my deleting my Twitter account, which has been surprisingly significant. I m still seeing the signs of its chaos everywhere in the press, so I feel like I should take a few minutes to reflect on what I think is happening on social media and how it relates to what s happening in American society generally. And I ve had to confront this problem before, when I have been confronted with people who have large public platforms and have said and done things in public over the years that I have found fairly reprehensible, and have had to figure out whether to say something about that or not, and I m not sure what the ethics of all of that should count for at moments like this. And that s what I m here to ask you: Should I be treating strangers more like friends, or former friends more like strangers? I honestly don t know what the answer is, but in the case of Elon Musk, he s taking up so much bandwidth culturally that I just wouldn t be doing my job if I didn t comment on what he s doing over there at Twitter, I d like to do something without much reflection about that. And so, for better or worse, I m going to do that now. This is a conversation about the underlying politics of the moment, and the reasons why we ve all made the greatest political mistake of our lifetime in my lifetime, and why we should all be worried about what s going on in the Oval Office. and why it s not just about the election of Donald Trump, but about how demonic Trumpism was not just a mistake, it s about how bad it s going to be, but also about how good it s gonna be in the future of our politics or not about how terrible it s really is the real Donald Trump really is, and how we should be what we should do about it not about it, not about what we ve made, and how he s really about him why we need to be better than we thought we could be . that was the greatest mistake I ve ever made, not just in a lifetime in my view it s that I ve made of my lifetime. We don t run ads on the podcast, and therefore it s made possible entirely through the podcast by the support of our listeners is made possible by the podcast and our subscribers


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast.
00:00:08.820 This is Sam Harris.
00:00:10.900 Just a note to say that if you're hearing this, you are not currently on our subscriber
00:00:14.680 feed and will only be hearing the first part of this conversation.
00:00:18.420 In order to access full episodes of the Making Sense Podcast, you'll need to subscribe at
00:00:22.720 samharris.org.
00:00:24.140 There you'll find our private RSS feed to add to your favorite podcatcher, along with
00:00:28.360 other subscriber-only content.
00:00:30.540 We don't run ads on the podcast, and therefore it's made possible entirely through the support
00:00:34.640 of our subscribers.
00:00:35.880 So if you enjoy what we're doing here, please consider becoming one.
00:00:46.560 Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast.
00:00:48.740 This is Sam Harris.
00:00:51.420 Okay, the end of the year is upon us.
00:00:53.780 I'm going to talk a little bit about Twitter and Elon and free speech here.
00:01:01.100 The end of my year was marked by, among other things, my deleting my Twitter account, which
00:01:07.920 has been surprisingly significant.
00:01:10.440 I've talked about this a little bit on the podcast and on other people's podcasts, but
00:01:15.520 it was really like leaving a bad relationship.
00:01:20.360 And psychologically, it was a pretty interesting thing to do.
00:01:24.980 But Twitter has been everywhere.
00:01:28.020 I'm still seeing the signs of its chaos everywhere in the press.
00:01:32.740 So I feel like I should take a few minutes to reflect on what I think is happening there
00:01:36.500 and how it relates to what's happening in American society generally.
00:01:42.020 Twitter is, in many ways, the seat of our societal dysfunction.
00:01:46.040 Social media is surely the seat of that dysfunction.
00:01:51.780 But Twitter, in particular, because journalists and politicians appear immovably anchored to it.
00:02:00.900 But as I'm going to say a few things about Elon, let me just confess my uncertainty about doing this.
00:02:07.800 As I've said or implied before, Elon has been a friend.
00:02:14.820 I'm not sure what the status of that friendship is now, frankly.
00:02:19.040 And that has a lot to do with Twitter.
00:02:22.140 And I've had to confront this problem before.
00:02:25.140 I've had many friends and now former friends who have large public platforms
00:02:31.320 and who have said and done things in public over the years that I have found fairly reprehensible
00:02:38.740 and have had to figure out whether to say something about that.
00:02:44.520 And I'm still uncertain about the ethics of all of this.
00:02:49.260 I don't know what having a friendship or a former friendship should count for at moments like this.
00:02:55.260 My default is certainly to more carefully calibrate what I say
00:03:00.960 or even whether I say anything at all in these cases.
00:03:05.600 Whereas, if it's a stranger out there doing the analogous thing,
00:03:09.620 I'll say something without much reflection about that.
00:03:13.860 And I'm not sure which way the balance should swing.
00:03:17.380 Should I be treating strangers more like friends?
00:03:20.340 Should I be treating friends and former friends more like strangers?
00:03:23.560 I honestly don't know what the answer is.
00:03:27.920 But in the case of Elon, he's taking up so much bandwidth culturally
00:03:34.420 that I feel like I have to say something.
00:03:38.480 I just wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't comment on what he's doing over there at Twitter.
00:03:44.500 So for better or worse, I'm going to do that now.
00:03:49.620 First, the underlying politics of the moment.
00:03:53.560 In my view, there's a needle you really had to thread over the last half decade or so
00:03:59.820 if you're going to be politically honest and ethically sane.
00:04:05.100 And not that many people managed it.
00:04:07.920 On the one side, you had to recognize how bad Trump was and is.
00:04:14.500 Not just as a person, but as a cultural phenomenon.
00:04:17.900 You had to see how appalling it was that we elected such a person to the presidency.
00:04:24.660 And then you had to be further appalled when we almost did it again.
00:04:28.240 Even while he was disavowing and openly violating the most sacred principle of our democracy.
00:04:33.960 A commitment to the peaceful transfer of power.
00:04:36.380 His behavior before, during, and after the events of January 6th
00:04:42.640 amounted to a direct attack on the rule of law in this country.
00:04:47.600 This was the first time in our history
00:04:49.980 that a president has sought to hold onto power in this way.
00:04:54.640 It was absolutely obvious at the time,
00:04:57.140 but it has only become more obvious on the basis of subsequent investigations
00:05:01.860 that Trump knew he lost the 2020 election.
00:05:06.220 And he put our democracy at risk by attempting to hold onto power.
00:05:11.460 By perpetrating a conscious fraud of election denial.
00:05:16.580 And among other things, attempting to force his vice president, Mike Pence,
00:05:20.340 to overturn the results of the election on January 6th.
00:05:24.120 The real Trump derangement syndrome was not to have seen how bad all this was.
00:05:32.420 Indeed, to not have seen how demonic Trumpism was and is
00:05:37.760 in its cultic embrace of one man's mediocrity and mendacity and narcissism.
00:05:46.240 I mean, it is just astounding that a person like Trump
00:05:50.300 got anywhere near the Oval Office.
00:05:54.120 To have missed that, and to have thought all the concern about Trump
00:05:58.100 was exaggerated, that it was just ordinary partisan politics.
00:06:02.400 That was, in my view, the greatest political mistake
00:06:05.900 anyone could have made in my lifetime.
00:06:09.620 And if you made that mistake,
00:06:11.780 if you persist in that mistake even now,
00:06:15.100 well then, everything I've said on the subject
00:06:17.660 must seem like some bewildering form of performance art.
00:06:21.080 On the other side,
00:06:23.800 you also had to see that in many important respects,
00:06:27.380 the left, and therefore the Democratic Party,
00:06:30.580 lost its mind
00:06:31.560 and succumbed to an identitarian moral panic.
00:06:35.320 Of course, some of this was in response to Trump,
00:06:38.060 and some of the justification for Trump
00:06:40.180 was a reaction to the hysteria and dishonesty of the left.
00:06:44.080 Each side, by being crazy and dishonest,
00:06:48.300 seemed to justify, or at least explain,
00:06:51.300 the excesses of the other.
00:06:53.300 But to not have seen, or cared,
00:06:56.560 that our mainstream cultural institutions
00:06:58.460 were being vitiated by woke nonsense
00:07:00.980 and thought policing
00:07:02.120 was to have been blind to the second most important
00:07:05.100 political phenomenon in recent years.
00:07:07.000 And the crucial piece,
00:07:09.980 and this really is the crucial piece,
00:07:13.480 is that an awareness of one of these problems,
00:07:16.420 however vivid,
00:07:17.880 did not compensate for one's ignorance of the other.
00:07:22.260 Many, many people had half the story
00:07:25.220 and made a lot of noise about half the story.
00:07:29.960 And by focusing on only half the story,
00:07:32.240 they carried water for the liars and grifters
00:07:36.700 and maniacs on the other side.
00:07:40.160 There are many, many people
00:07:41.840 with enormous platforms
00:07:43.640 who have spent years railing against wokeness,
00:07:48.520 appropriately,
00:07:49.880 but they've never made the most basic concessions
00:07:52.240 to moral and political sanity
00:07:53.760 in their comments about Trump.
00:07:56.120 And of course, there are countless people
00:07:57.740 in the mainstream media
00:07:58.680 who had the opposite problem.
00:07:59.960 The truth is,
00:08:01.760 I remain completely mystified
00:08:03.620 by both sets of people.
00:08:06.120 It seems to me that social media,
00:08:08.380 and Twitter in particular,
00:08:10.260 has always been at the heart of this confusion.
00:08:13.640 People got radicalized by their own audiences.
00:08:17.580 Nothing gets the dopamine going
00:08:18.840 like dunking on the other side.
00:08:21.480 Though I closed my Twitter account a few weeks ago,
00:08:24.400 people have been sending me things
00:08:25.740 they think I should see.
00:08:27.640 As I said,
00:08:28.220 I bump into the evidence of Twitter
00:08:29.740 everywhere in news articles now.
00:08:32.480 And I've also looked at some of the
00:08:33.580 Twitter files releases
00:08:35.000 that are only available on Twitter.
00:08:38.040 Now, apparently Elon was dunking on me
00:08:40.320 after I closed my account,
00:08:42.560 and obviously misunderstanding my views
00:08:44.300 about Trump and the Hunter Biden laptop story,
00:08:47.800 along with everyone else.
00:08:49.360 He said something suggesting that
00:08:50.680 though I wrote a book against lying,
00:08:52.700 I now believe that it was ethical
00:08:54.040 and even necessary to lie
00:08:55.680 to try to deny Trump the presidency.
00:08:57.980 He surely got that impression
00:08:59.940 from the two-minute clip
00:09:01.400 from the Triggernometry podcast
00:09:03.200 that went viral in right-wing circles.
00:09:06.520 Of course, this is symptomatic
00:09:08.140 of the very problem at issue.
00:09:10.720 I believe that clip was made
00:09:12.180 by an anti-vax lunatic
00:09:14.180 and then spread to the ends of the earth
00:09:16.140 by a Pizzagate lunatic,
00:09:18.100 and it misrepresents what I clearly meant
00:09:20.720 in the context of that interview.
00:09:23.200 In any case, I've never suggested
00:09:24.360 that it was ethical,
00:09:25.540 much less necessary,
00:09:26.340 to lie to resist Trump.
00:09:29.280 All I said was that I understood
00:09:31.040 the impulse to ignore
00:09:32.520 the Hunter Biden laptop story
00:09:34.140 until after the 2020 election,
00:09:37.020 because it had been dropped
00:09:38.540 as an October surprise,
00:09:40.880 purposely close to the election,
00:09:43.000 so there would be just enough time
00:09:44.660 for the controversy over it
00:09:46.060 to detonate and have its intended effect
00:09:48.420 and not enough time to debunk it
00:09:50.760 if it could be debunked.
00:09:52.920 The emergence of the laptop
00:09:54.500 definitely looked shady.
00:09:57.280 It looked like it could be disinformation,
00:09:59.520 and there was every reason
00:10:01.020 to be circumspect about it.
00:10:03.260 This wasn't a choice
00:10:04.960 of consciously withholding
00:10:07.140 the God's honest truth,
00:10:09.120 much less lying about it,
00:10:10.620 in order to sway an ordinary election.
00:10:12.800 It was a choice to ignore
00:10:14.820 a very murky story
00:10:16.360 for a few weeks
00:10:17.820 in the face of an election
00:10:19.700 that was already being disputed
00:10:22.120 even before it was run
00:10:24.080 by a sociopathic president
00:10:26.600 who would not commit
00:10:28.680 to a peaceful transfer of power.
00:10:31.680 Waiting on this story
00:10:33.140 did not in any way entail lying.
00:10:37.300 And in any case,
00:10:38.200 all I said on that podcast
00:10:39.560 was that I was undecided
00:10:41.780 about the propriety
00:10:42.800 of ignoring that story.
00:10:44.400 And frankly, I still am.
00:10:46.200 And I was even more uncertain
00:10:47.700 about Twitter actively suppressing it.
00:10:50.520 In fact, I agree that in retrospect,
00:10:52.600 that was obviously the wrong call.
00:10:55.080 But this is obvious
00:10:56.220 only in retrospect.
00:10:58.300 However, it was troublesome
00:10:59.400 even at the time.
00:11:01.080 And the leaked Twitter files
00:11:02.660 showed that Twitter employees
00:11:05.220 were conflicted about it
00:11:06.440 at the time.
00:11:07.100 And the rationale they used
00:11:09.380 that the New York Post story
00:11:10.820 may have relied on
00:11:11.580 hacked information
00:11:12.480 was pretty weak
00:11:13.980 even at the time.
00:11:15.720 And I completely understand
00:11:17.140 the outrage
00:11:17.900 that people feel
00:11:18.980 over Twitter suspending
00:11:19.880 the New York Post's account.
00:11:21.720 That has always seemed
00:11:23.320 qualitatively different to me
00:11:25.100 than other journalists
00:11:26.560 simply deciding
00:11:27.480 not to take Rudy Giuliani's bait
00:11:29.300 and just ignoring the story
00:11:31.260 until after the election.
00:11:32.880 But now the laptop story
00:11:34.540 has been fully aired,
00:11:36.140 hasn't it?
00:11:37.100 The contents of that hard drive
00:11:38.420 have been picked over
00:11:39.120 by everyone,
00:11:40.180 certainly everyone
00:11:40.800 right of center.
00:11:42.260 Have there been any bombshells?
00:11:44.160 Did it prove some terrible
00:11:45.560 level of corruption
00:11:46.640 on the part of Joe Biden?
00:11:49.340 It certainly doesn't seem that way.
00:11:51.580 What's the big story?
00:11:53.240 Now that our democracy
00:11:54.600 isn't hanging in the balance,
00:11:56.440 I would love to hear it.
00:11:59.120 I've clarified my position
00:12:00.500 on all that repeatedly.
00:12:02.900 And yet Elon can't figure out
00:12:04.300 what it actually is.
00:12:05.480 Because like most people,
00:12:07.600 he's seen a two-minute clip
00:12:08.920 from a podcast
00:12:09.600 and he imagines
00:12:10.980 that its meaning
00:12:11.620 is self-evident.
00:12:13.540 This simply is
00:12:14.340 one of the problems
00:12:15.380 with Twitter.
00:12:17.540 And now Elon,
00:12:18.480 through the journalists
00:12:19.260 Matt Taibbi
00:12:20.020 and Barry Weiss
00:12:20.940 and others,
00:12:22.480 has been releasing
00:12:23.180 internal Twitter documents,
00:12:25.600 the so-called Twitter files,
00:12:27.320 which show that
00:12:28.300 certain political entities
00:12:29.380 like the DNC
00:12:30.520 asked Twitter
00:12:31.800 to block various tweets,
00:12:33.220 including material
00:12:34.540 related to Hunter Biden.
00:12:36.340 Not the laptop story itself,
00:12:38.300 but nude pictures of him
00:12:39.660 taken from the laptop.
00:12:41.760 I don't think it's been reported
00:12:42.740 that anyone outside of Twitter
00:12:44.300 urged them to block
00:12:45.760 the New York Post story.
00:12:48.200 Taibbi even said
00:12:49.000 that there was,
00:12:49.660 quote,
00:12:49.880 no evidence that I've seen
00:12:51.040 of any government involvement
00:12:52.280 in the laptop story.
00:12:54.200 Of course,
00:12:55.180 most people on the right,
00:12:56.680 including red-pilled Elon,
00:12:58.500 are acting like
00:12:59.640 the opposite is the case,
00:13:01.520 that there was clear
00:13:02.420 government suppression
00:13:03.380 of free speech.
00:13:05.200 In fact,
00:13:05.580 Elon tweeted
00:13:06.220 that Twitter had acted,
00:13:07.900 quote,
00:13:08.440 under orders from the government
00:13:09.680 to suppress free speech
00:13:11.200 with no judicial review,
00:13:13.600 end quote.
00:13:14.980 That appears to be
00:13:16.100 just false.
00:13:17.720 And from what I've seen,
00:13:19.300 Elon's editorial comments
00:13:20.660 on the Twitter files
00:13:21.580 more or less
00:13:23.020 reliably misrepresent
00:13:24.720 the information
00:13:25.660 that is actually leaked.
00:13:28.420 Anyway,
00:13:29.200 it does seem relevant
00:13:30.180 to point out
00:13:31.040 that Biden wasn't president
00:13:33.300 at the time.
00:13:35.000 So requests
00:13:35.700 for the removal of tweets
00:13:37.240 were not coming
00:13:38.700 from the people in power.
00:13:40.720 And when the FBI
00:13:41.700 contacted Twitter
00:13:42.820 and other social media platforms
00:13:44.340 warning that there might be
00:13:45.860 some Russian disinformation
00:13:47.060 coming that was related
00:13:48.320 to Hunter Biden,
00:13:49.640 and this is being perceived
00:13:50.580 as a smoking gun
00:13:51.780 on the right,
00:13:53.000 this was Trump's FBI,
00:13:55.480 run by a Trump appointee.
00:13:58.340 Surely that muddies the picture
00:13:59.840 of a hyper-partisan deep state
00:14:01.780 seeking to undermine
00:14:03.220 an election.
00:14:04.620 And the background fact
00:14:05.740 is that it was totally plausible
00:14:07.420 to be worried about
00:14:08.760 Russian hacking
00:14:09.540 at that moment
00:14:10.720 because there was
00:14:11.720 a ton of it.
00:14:12.900 And there was pushback
00:14:14.680 at Twitter.
00:14:16.020 There was a lot of communication
00:14:17.260 between Twitter
00:14:18.200 and the FBI.
00:14:19.600 The Twitter files journalists
00:14:20.960 have now moved
00:14:22.380 the goalposts
00:14:23.840 in response to this.
00:14:25.420 First, it was a story
00:14:26.340 of how corrupt
00:14:27.140 Twitter was.
00:14:28.460 You're not going to believe
00:14:29.380 how corrupt.
00:14:30.500 But now it's a story
00:14:31.320 of how corrupt
00:14:32.060 and Orwellian
00:14:32.760 the FBI is.
00:14:34.380 And Twitter's resistance
00:14:35.620 to the meddling
00:14:36.740 of the FBI
00:14:37.560 is now evidence
00:14:38.720 of that.
00:14:39.860 Right?
00:14:40.120 So this is a very
00:14:41.040 mixed picture.
00:14:43.000 Even if Biden
00:14:44.180 had been president
00:14:45.400 at the time
00:14:46.300 and the requests
00:14:47.580 came directly from him,
00:14:49.400 it matters
00:14:50.440 that they were
00:14:51.240 just requests,
00:14:52.340 not ultimatums
00:14:53.960 backed up by force.
00:14:55.600 If Biden
00:14:56.540 as president
00:14:57.520 called Twitter
00:14:58.880 and said,
00:14:59.780 if you don't take
00:15:00.160 those naked photos
00:15:00.960 of my son down,
00:15:01.720 I'm going to destroy
00:15:02.380 your company,
00:15:03.540 okay,
00:15:04.200 now we've landed
00:15:05.260 in First Amendment
00:15:05.940 territory.
00:15:07.260 Nothing I've seen
00:15:08.120 related to the Twitter files
00:15:09.540 amounts to coercion
00:15:11.120 from a government source.
00:15:13.280 Also,
00:15:13.620 Taibbi reports
00:15:14.400 that the Trump administration
00:15:15.660 made similar requests.
00:15:17.940 And Trump was
00:15:18.840 president
00:15:19.540 at the time.
00:15:20.440 Again,
00:15:21.260 if Trump
00:15:21.680 was just
00:15:22.220 making requests,
00:15:23.800 as much as I'd love
00:15:24.620 to say he was
00:15:25.280 stifling free speech,
00:15:26.920 I can't.
00:15:28.020 Because he wasn't.
00:15:29.740 This is not
00:15:30.720 government censorship.
00:15:33.420 The Twitter files
00:15:34.060 definitely revealed
00:15:35.260 less than optimal ways
00:15:37.260 in which Twitter employees
00:15:38.620 were stifling conversation
00:15:40.180 on the platform.
00:15:41.980 For instance,
00:15:42.500 they throttled
00:15:43.180 the tweets
00:15:43.740 from Jay Bhattacharya,
00:15:45.740 a Stanford doctor
00:15:46.620 who was skeptical
00:15:47.320 of school closures
00:15:48.500 and other COVID policies.
00:15:50.440 And they did this
00:15:51.240 to many other doctors.
00:15:52.960 That just seems
00:15:53.920 genuinely dysfunctional.
00:15:56.080 And I completely understand
00:15:57.340 how millions of people
00:15:58.900 who have felt
00:15:59.900 gaslit
00:16:00.620 by the government
00:16:01.500 and by the mainstream media
00:16:03.220 and by Twitter itself
00:16:05.280 with respect to
00:16:06.700 COVID information,
00:16:08.020 especially the many people
00:16:09.420 who were abandoned
00:16:10.320 and shunned
00:16:12.140 undeservedly,
00:16:14.180 I get why many of them
00:16:15.660 now view Elon
00:16:16.900 as a white knight
00:16:18.320 riding to the rescue.
00:16:19.740 But think of what
00:16:21.540 was actually happening
00:16:22.740 when these doctors
00:16:24.200 were getting
00:16:24.800 de-boosted
00:16:25.940 or even suspended
00:16:27.040 by Twitter.
00:16:28.960 First,
00:16:29.940 their tweets
00:16:30.460 were being flagged
00:16:31.480 by bots
00:16:32.200 designed to detect
00:16:33.860 COVID misinformation,
00:16:35.580 of which there was
00:16:36.240 a veritable deluge.
00:16:38.520 And then when flagged,
00:16:40.100 these tweets
00:16:40.540 got reviewed
00:16:41.200 by outsourced reviewers,
00:16:43.100 often in the Philippines,
00:16:44.420 who were simply
00:16:45.280 not qualified
00:16:45.900 to judge the veracity
00:16:47.120 of medical information.
00:16:48.160 almost no one
00:16:50.040 was qualified
00:16:50.960 to do this
00:16:51.740 at the time,
00:16:52.960 inside or outside
00:16:54.060 of Twitter,
00:16:55.220 because COVID
00:16:56.200 has been a moving target
00:16:57.560 for years.
00:16:59.320 And what made
00:17:00.180 perfect sense
00:17:01.080 one month
00:17:01.760 made much less sense
00:17:03.540 a few months later,
00:17:04.960 and vice versa.
00:17:06.620 Now,
00:17:07.460 I will fully grant
00:17:08.620 that some of Twitter's
00:17:10.060 editorial decisions,
00:17:11.540 along with the government's
00:17:12.520 urging
00:17:12.860 of those decisions,
00:17:14.840 now seem suspect.
00:17:16.400 But what did you expect
00:17:18.520 these institutions
00:17:19.440 to be doing
00:17:20.180 during a time
00:17:21.460 of total
00:17:22.180 information chaos,
00:17:23.620 when we had people
00:17:24.940 with enormous platforms,
00:17:26.780 and even a sitting
00:17:27.640 U.S. president,
00:17:28.920 trafficking in lies
00:17:30.400 about everything.
00:17:32.280 And the lies
00:17:33.520 and half-truths
00:17:35.200 were coming down
00:17:36.060 in torrents,
00:17:37.560 day and night,
00:17:38.520 for months on end.
00:17:40.160 And we really did
00:17:41.680 have a global pandemic
00:17:42.840 that was killing
00:17:43.900 millions of people.
00:17:44.600 And we really do
00:17:46.180 have a continuous
00:17:46.980 problem of cyber attacks
00:17:48.740 and disinformation campaigns
00:17:50.460 to deal with.
00:17:51.900 And we really do
00:17:52.700 have people saying
00:17:53.580 that vaccines
00:17:54.360 are microchipping us,
00:17:56.500 and that COVID itself
00:17:57.680 is just a pretext
00:17:58.680 for the crashing down
00:17:59.760 of some new world order.
00:18:01.780 And there really was
00:18:02.640 an early expectation
00:18:03.560 that the mRNA vaccines
00:18:05.020 would prevent
00:18:05.680 disease transmission.
00:18:07.060 And there really was
00:18:07.940 uncertainty about
00:18:08.720 how lethal
00:18:09.300 the disease actually was.
00:18:10.880 And it really does seem,
00:18:13.180 even now,
00:18:14.180 that vaccine hesitancy
00:18:15.520 was killing
00:18:16.580 a lot of people.
00:18:18.400 What do you expect
00:18:19.900 compassionate
00:18:21.200 and responsible people
00:18:22.780 in institutions
00:18:23.800 to do
00:18:24.820 at that point?
00:18:26.420 There will always be
00:18:27.240 edge cases,
00:18:28.520 especially during
00:18:29.400 a public health emergency.
00:18:31.240 And edge cases
00:18:32.120 will be,
00:18:32.700 by definition,
00:18:34.040 very hard to deal with.
00:18:35.640 That's why
00:18:36.100 they're edge cases.
00:18:36.920 So from what I've seen
00:18:38.920 of the Twitter files,
00:18:40.860 the general picture
00:18:41.800 was of people at Twitter
00:18:43.640 in way over their heads,
00:18:46.560 trying to steer
00:18:47.540 a dangerous machine
00:18:49.000 that really can't be steered
00:18:51.180 without causing
00:18:52.380 a fair amount of pain
00:18:53.420 and controversy somewhere.
00:18:55.500 But it can't be allowed
00:18:56.700 to fly freely either.
00:18:58.960 We have a persistent problem
00:19:00.960 in determining
00:19:02.100 valid sources of information,
00:19:04.160 and especially doing this
00:19:05.180 quickly when it matters.
00:19:06.920 And if you think
00:19:07.920 the solution
00:19:08.600 is to just let
00:19:10.180 the cacophony unfold,
00:19:12.500 algorithmically boosted
00:19:13.760 by a business model
00:19:14.620 that is preferentially
00:19:15.620 fueled by partisan outrage
00:19:18.040 and crowdsourced hysteria,
00:19:20.900 where medical misinformation
00:19:22.180 spreads faster
00:19:23.720 than real science,
00:19:25.380 where election denialism
00:19:27.040 spreads faster
00:19:28.120 than any patient
00:19:29.180 debunking of it
00:19:30.160 ever could,
00:19:31.860 that is where
00:19:32.840 we have been.
00:19:34.300 And it has been
00:19:35.320 a disaster.
00:19:36.920 So, at the moment,
00:19:39.080 I still haven't seen
00:19:40.080 anything in the Twitter files
00:19:41.360 that rises to the level
00:19:43.080 of an infringement
00:19:44.000 of the First Amendment.
00:19:45.560 What is clear,
00:19:47.240 however,
00:19:47.980 is that with each
00:19:49.060 subsequent release,
00:19:50.840 Elon and his
00:19:51.620 hand-picked journalists
00:19:52.920 are spinning the information
00:19:54.660 in fairly tendentious ways.
00:19:57.300 From what I can tell,
00:19:58.000 Barry Weiss has been
00:19:58.900 the exception to this.
00:20:00.680 She was careful
00:20:01.240 to not seem like
00:20:02.020 she was just doing PR
00:20:03.080 for Elon.
00:20:03.640 And for that,
00:20:04.980 Elon seems to
00:20:05.660 no longer like her.
00:20:07.420 But if Elon's goal
00:20:08.580 was simple transparency,
00:20:10.900 he should have
00:20:11.540 just released the files
00:20:12.800 and let journalists
00:20:14.140 everywhere draw
00:20:15.000 their own conclusions.
00:20:16.680 However,
00:20:17.080 the deeper issue
00:20:18.100 is that this
00:20:19.540 whole controversy
00:20:20.760 seems basically fake.
00:20:23.920 Twitter simply
00:20:24.960 isn't the public square.
00:20:27.080 It only seems
00:20:28.220 like the public square
00:20:29.140 to people who
00:20:29.680 are addicted to it.
00:20:31.020 And basically,
00:20:31.640 every journalist
00:20:32.380 is addicted to it.
00:20:34.420 Ask yourself,
00:20:35.900 is Reddit
00:20:36.580 the public square?
00:20:38.440 Is Instagram?
00:20:40.320 Is TikTok?
00:20:41.700 If someone gets
00:20:42.860 kicked off of Reddit,
00:20:44.300 have they been
00:20:44.820 unpersoned?
00:20:46.140 If the U.S. government
00:20:47.640 bans TikTok
00:20:48.880 as a nefarious piece
00:20:50.620 of CCP spyware,
00:20:52.320 as it almost
00:20:52.860 certainly is,
00:20:54.140 will that be the
00:20:54.740 end of our democracy?
00:20:56.620 Not being on
00:20:57.600 any of these platforms,
00:20:59.020 I think it's obvious
00:21:00.140 that they're not
00:21:01.000 the public square.
00:21:02.580 Again,
00:21:02.880 if we want to
00:21:03.460 change the laws
00:21:04.640 and designate
00:21:05.880 one or all
00:21:06.580 of these services
00:21:07.240 to be no longer
00:21:08.120 private,
00:21:09.140 and to make them
00:21:09.680 analogous to some
00:21:10.520 digital street corner
00:21:11.700 that everyone
00:21:12.620 has a legal right
00:21:13.440 to inhabit,
00:21:14.420 we are free
00:21:15.200 to do that.
00:21:16.300 And there may even
00:21:16.940 be an argument
00:21:17.620 for doing some
00:21:18.640 version of that.
00:21:20.140 But that is not
00:21:21.120 where we currently are.
00:21:23.520 Anyway,
00:21:24.420 recent weeks have
00:21:25.200 shown that the
00:21:25.840 so-called
00:21:26.440 free speech
00:21:27.200 absolutists,
00:21:28.560 including Elon,
00:21:29.260 can't possibly
00:21:30.800 take their own
00:21:31.500 absolutism seriously.
00:21:34.100 Elon has admitted
00:21:34.920 that Twitter
00:21:35.400 will be throttling
00:21:36.400 negative speech
00:21:37.460 under the rubric
00:21:38.820 that freedom of speech
00:21:39.800 doesn't entail
00:21:40.460 freedom of reach.
00:21:42.060 Great.
00:21:42.940 This is identical
00:21:43.920 to my observation
00:21:45.160 that algorithmically
00:21:46.860 boosted speech
00:21:47.700 isn't normal speech.
00:21:49.900 No one has
00:21:50.360 a constitutional right
00:21:51.600 to have their speech
00:21:52.680 algorithmically boosted.
00:21:54.440 I obviously agree
00:21:56.220 with Elon's
00:21:56.880 apparent policy
00:21:57.840 on this point.
00:21:59.360 But it is an
00:22:00.080 absolute repudiation
00:22:01.580 of what many people
00:22:02.940 were hoping for
00:22:03.880 from his tenure
00:22:04.800 at Twitter.
00:22:05.720 And it's a repudiation
00:22:07.100 of the results
00:22:08.140 he claimed
00:22:09.060 to be delivering.
00:22:10.800 That's worth noticing.
00:22:12.680 If you have the
00:22:13.320 wrong political opinions,
00:22:15.140 like maybe you're
00:22:15.740 a Nazi,
00:22:17.000 Elon intends
00:22:18.100 to make your speech
00:22:19.280 virtually unseen
00:22:20.660 and unheard
00:22:21.660 on Twitter.
00:22:23.140 Or he might just
00:22:24.000 kick you off the platform.
00:22:25.660 He decided to kick
00:22:26.500 Kanye off Twitter again
00:22:27.780 because he tweeted
00:22:28.820 a weird swastika
00:22:30.080 inside of a Jewish star.
00:22:32.280 Honestly,
00:22:32.760 that was further
00:22:33.440 than I would have gone.
00:22:35.260 Elon said that
00:22:35.880 this violated
00:22:36.480 Twitter's policy
00:22:37.260 about calling for violence.
00:22:39.040 But I don't actually
00:22:39.800 see a swastika
00:22:41.080 in any form
00:22:42.200 as a clear call
00:22:43.620 for violence.
00:22:44.860 So I think I'd be
00:22:45.460 more of a free speech
00:22:46.440 absolutist than Elon
00:22:47.600 in this case.
00:22:49.480 Anyway,
00:22:49.860 the deeper point
00:22:50.820 is that Elon
00:22:51.920 knew that Kanye
00:22:52.980 was an unhinged
00:22:54.060 anti-Semite
00:22:54.760 when he made
00:22:55.180 a great show
00:22:55.840 of letting him
00:22:56.380 back on Twitter.
00:22:57.940 What did he think
00:22:58.740 was going to happen?
00:23:00.720 Admittedly,
00:23:01.240 it was surprising
00:23:02.020 to see Kanye
00:23:02.760 show up on Alex Jones'
00:23:04.140 crazy show
00:23:04.960 in a gimphood
00:23:06.320 praising Hitler.
00:23:08.460 Even Alex Jones
00:23:09.220 appeared shocked by that.
00:23:10.700 But still,
00:23:11.360 we knew where Kanye
00:23:12.480 stood on the Jews
00:23:13.760 a long time ago.
00:23:15.560 And then there was
00:23:16.320 all the craziness
00:23:17.020 around Elon
00:23:17.700 suspending the accounts
00:23:18.780 of the kid
00:23:19.260 who was tracking
00:23:19.960 his private jet,
00:23:21.000 along with the private jets
00:23:22.520 of other celebrities.
00:23:24.400 This college kid
00:23:25.320 had created a bot
00:23:26.220 which did nothing more
00:23:27.540 than aggregate
00:23:28.260 publicly available
00:23:29.080 information.
00:23:30.600 The problem was
00:23:31.180 Elon had previously
00:23:32.140 used this kid
00:23:33.020 as an example
00:23:33.600 of his unalloyed
00:23:34.540 commitment to free speech.
00:23:36.400 He said,
00:23:36.700 look,
00:23:36.860 I'm even protecting
00:23:37.520 the speech
00:23:37.900 of this guy
00:23:38.380 who was tracking
00:23:38.960 my plane
00:23:39.620 and increasing
00:23:40.440 my security concerns
00:23:41.480 only to then
00:23:42.680 suspend the kid's
00:23:43.800 account
00:23:44.200 along with the
00:23:45.160 accounts of real
00:23:45.840 journalists
00:23:46.440 who had merely
00:23:47.260 reported on the story.
00:23:48.440 I'm totally sympathetic
00:23:51.140 with Elon's
00:23:52.200 security concerns here.
00:23:53.980 Having the exact
00:23:54.780 GPS coordinates
00:23:55.820 and arrival time
00:23:56.700 of his plane
00:23:57.400 continuously published
00:23:59.460 vastly increases
00:24:01.260 his personal security risks
00:24:02.620 as well as those
00:24:03.620 of his family.
00:24:04.940 I'm not sure
00:24:05.380 why this information
00:24:06.160 is publicly available
00:24:07.100 in the first place.
00:24:08.140 I think it probably
00:24:08.880 shouldn't be.
00:24:10.240 But Elon
00:24:11.160 is making himself
00:24:12.120 look ridiculous
00:24:12.900 by trumpeting
00:24:14.360 his free speech
00:24:15.220 absolutism
00:24:15.980 only to then
00:24:17.020 rescind it
00:24:17.860 without acknowledging
00:24:19.000 the apparent hypocrisy
00:24:20.180 and the resulting
00:24:21.440 ad hoc policy
00:24:22.680 that he's now
00:24:23.260 supposedly implementing
00:24:24.340 that no real-time
00:24:26.080 information about
00:24:26.920 the whereabouts
00:24:27.500 of people
00:24:27.900 will be tolerated
00:24:28.740 just seems impossible
00:24:30.460 to enforce
00:24:31.180 or even to
00:24:32.200 adequately define.
00:24:34.060 There's obviously
00:24:34.720 a ton of
00:24:35.540 celebrity coverage
00:24:36.560 that is publicity
00:24:37.540 or legitimate journalism
00:24:39.240 or just random
00:24:40.560 fun information
00:24:41.560 which could suddenly
00:24:42.880 look like the
00:24:43.640 quote,
00:24:44.200 real-time doxing
00:24:45.480 that Elon
00:24:46.340 is worried about.
00:24:47.860 Anyway,
00:24:48.480 despite the fact
00:24:49.220 that he's being
00:24:49.860 hailed as some
00:24:50.600 kind of radical
00:24:51.380 champion of free
00:24:52.400 speech
00:24:52.800 and he's hailing
00:24:53.700 himself that way
00:24:55.080 Elon is finding
00:24:56.360 that he simply
00:24:56.900 has to make
00:24:57.560 the same judgment
00:24:58.220 calls that any
00:24:59.060 platform has to
00:24:59.960 make if it doesn't
00:25:00.960 want to turn
00:25:01.560 into 4chan
00:25:02.360 and he's not
00:25:03.980 playing 4D chess
00:25:05.860 here.
00:25:06.760 He's quite
00:25:07.680 obviously making
00:25:08.720 everything up
00:25:09.320 as he goes along
00:25:10.080 which honestly
00:25:11.620 is fine.
00:25:13.500 It might be
00:25:13.960 impossible to make
00:25:15.260 Twitter a good
00:25:15.880 place for communication.
00:25:16.900 I'm not going
00:25:18.020 to fault Elon
00:25:18.760 for failing
00:25:19.360 to do the
00:25:19.820 impossible.
00:25:21.340 What I do
00:25:21.860 fault him for
00:25:22.700 is for being
00:25:23.840 intellectually
00:25:24.620 and ethically
00:25:25.520 unserious
00:25:26.540 which is to
00:25:27.500 say totally
00:25:28.500 reckless
00:25:29.060 when he touches
00:25:30.380 real issues
00:25:31.480 in front of
00:25:32.380 120 million
00:25:33.340 people on the
00:25:34.280 platform.
00:25:35.640 One of the
00:25:36.120 first things
00:25:36.800 Elon did
00:25:37.500 after taking
00:25:38.080 over Twitter
00:25:38.620 was tweet
00:25:39.780 an article
00:25:40.360 that claimed
00:25:41.600 that the attack
00:25:42.360 on Nancy Pelosi's
00:25:43.320 husband
00:25:43.660 was not at
00:25:44.620 all what
00:25:45.100 it seemed.
00:25:46.100 It was rather
00:25:46.720 a gay tryst
00:25:47.740 gone wrong.
00:25:49.420 And then when
00:25:49.740 it became obvious
00:25:50.520 just how crazy
00:25:51.480 his source was
00:25:52.520 I believe it was
00:25:53.480 a website that
00:25:54.160 had previously
00:25:54.700 claimed that
00:25:55.420 Hillary Clinton
00:25:56.220 was dead
00:25:56.900 and that a
00:25:57.820 body double
00:25:58.360 was campaigning
00:25:59.260 in her place
00:25:59.880 when it became
00:26:00.880 embarrassing
00:26:01.440 to have tweeted
00:26:02.280 that he just
00:26:03.740 deleted the tweet
00:26:04.700 without comment.
00:26:06.600 Delete the tweet
00:26:07.400 fine but when
00:26:09.000 you see that you
00:26:09.880 have amplified
00:26:10.600 a crazy
00:26:11.480 conspiracy theory
00:26:12.520 that turns
00:26:13.640 a savage
00:26:14.320 attack on
00:26:15.100 an innocent
00:26:15.560 person into
00:26:16.780 a Trumpist
00:26:17.720 meme and
00:26:18.780 punchline
00:26:19.420 you should
00:26:20.600 apologize
00:26:21.180 and correct
00:26:22.420 the record.
00:26:23.620 He did the
00:26:23.960 same thing
00:26:24.380 when he brought
00:26:24.800 Kanye back
00:26:25.460 on Twitter.
00:26:26.580 He tweeted
00:26:26.920 some meme
00:26:27.600 where he was
00:26:28.160 high-fiving him
00:26:29.060 and then deleted
00:26:30.300 that meme
00:26:30.820 without comment
00:26:31.540 once Kanye's
00:26:32.600 anti-Semitic
00:26:33.260 podcast tour
00:26:34.020 fully ran
00:26:34.820 off the rails.
00:26:36.100 Again,
00:26:36.500 Kanye's
00:26:37.000 anti-Semitism
00:26:37.660 was already
00:26:38.660 obvious and
00:26:39.840 Elon was
00:26:40.400 signal-boosting
00:26:41.260 all that
00:26:41.640 lunacy
00:26:42.120 by celebrating
00:26:43.260 his return
00:26:43.960 to Twitter
00:26:44.400 in the first
00:26:44.860 place.
00:26:45.720 That was a
00:26:46.220 totally
00:26:46.800 irresponsible
00:26:47.420 thing to do.
00:26:49.460 And speaking
00:26:49.940 of doxing
00:26:50.780 and security
00:26:51.660 concerns,
00:26:52.820 Elon publicly
00:26:53.820 vilified his
00:26:54.780 former head
00:26:55.300 of trust
00:26:55.700 and safety,
00:26:56.820 Yoel Roth,
00:26:58.100 in a way
00:26:58.540 that was
00:26:58.820 objectively
00:26:59.500 dangerous.
00:27:01.040 This is
00:27:01.340 from the
00:27:01.640 video.
00:27:02.340 If you'd
00:27:02.980 like to
00:27:03.220 continue
00:27:03.520 listening to
00:27:03.980 this conversation,
00:27:05.200 you'll need
00:27:05.520 to subscribe
00:27:06.020 at
00:27:06.360 SamHarris.org.
00:27:07.940 Once you do,
00:27:08.560 you'll get
00:27:08.800 access to all
00:27:09.500 full-length
00:27:09.960 episodes of
00:27:10.520 The Making
00:27:10.760 Sense Podcast,
00:27:12.000 along with
00:27:12.400 other subscriber-only
00:27:13.340 content,
00:27:14.340 including bonus
00:27:15.040 episodes and
00:27:16.120 AMAs and the
00:27:17.280 conversations I've
00:27:17.980 been having on
00:27:18.460 the Waking Up
00:27:18.940 app.
00:27:19.880 The Making
00:27:20.180 Sense Podcast
00:27:20.780 is ad-free
00:27:21.660 and relies
00:27:22.580 entirely on
00:27:23.300 listener support.
00:27:24.460 And you can
00:27:24.920 subscribe now
00:27:25.700 at
00:27:26.220 SamHarris.org.
00:27:27.120 Thank you.
00:27:39.960 for tuning in to
00:27:41.220 The Making
00:27:49.220 Sense Podcast has
00:27:52.520 been
00:27:55.200 εΎ—