RadixJournal - Fahrenheit 230

00:00:00.000 It's Tuesday, December 4th, 2020, and welcome back to The McSpencer Group, an unrehearsed,

00:00:08.060 hastily assembled program about meta-politics.

00:00:11.840 Joining me is the legendary G.F. Jean-François Garipay, an homme qui croit que manger du fromage 0.99

00:00:19.220 brie-fondue est mauvais-leur.

00:00:21.840 Main topic, Fahrenheit 230.

00:00:25.100 Social media deplatforming is an existential crisis for our time.

00:00:30.120 Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube have become, in effect, the mainstream media, replacing

00:00:35.480 the big networks of yesteryear.

00:00:38.120 As they've risen to prominence, they seem less like free speech bastions and more like

00:00:43.080 institutions with an agenda to promote their preferred messages and advertiser-friendly

00:00:48.680 content.

00:00:49.620 Donald Trump thinks we can crack this nut by removing big tech's immunity to lawsuits through

00:00:55.320 Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

00:00:58.260 J.F. and I debate the future of the internet.

00:01:02.720 All right.

00:01:03.420 So we can get maybe on this.

00:01:04.860 Who's the host here, J.F.?

00:01:06.040 Yeah, yeah.

00:01:07.660 You're like, all right, next question.

00:01:14.040 It's hard to get up.

00:01:14.960 This is my show.

00:01:16.700 We've been doing this for years.

00:01:18.940 I know.

00:01:19.520 We have.

00:01:20.060 So it's kind of weird.

00:01:21.180 Okay.

00:01:21.800 Let me take the reins.

00:01:23.640 So we have some big issues that I want to talk about.

00:01:31.520 And we have an interesting disagreement here.

00:01:34.260 So de-platforming Section 230.

00:01:38.920 Now, de-platforming, let me set the scene here and then we can kind of talk about it.

00:01:43.640 Because this is a very specific issue in the sense of this aspect of the Decency and Communications

00:01:49.820 Act.

00:01:50.180 But it's also a really big issue that affects you and me personally, in fact, and affects

00:01:57.320 millions of people.

00:01:58.720 So de-platforming is an issue that was around maybe five or 10 years ago.

00:02:08.040 You would occasionally hear of someone maybe selling marijuana or maybe publishing what,

00:02:15.900 you know, quote unquote, white supremacy articles on the internet.

00:02:20.480 And they were getting kicked off PayPal.

00:02:22.320 But it seemed to be a very marginal thing.

00:02:24.720 And in my experience, because I've been doing this for a while, I was not affected by de-platforming.

00:02:31.360 And in fact, Silicon Valley's platforming was vital to my business, such as it was, in

00:02:41.380 the sense that my ability to use Stripe, to use Squarespace, to use PayPal, to use all of

00:02:47.860 these kind of layers on top of Stripe were essential.

00:02:52.160 And by about 2016, things started to dramatically change.

00:02:57.680 I remember right after Trump's election, I was kicked off Twitter for really no reason.

00:03:03.020 I mean, my last tweets before I was kicked off were actually, I think my last tweet before

00:03:08.780 I was being kicked off, ironically, was a response to David Frum.

00:03:13.040 And he actually wrote an article saying I was about to respond back to him and his account

00:03:18.040 disappeared.

00:03:18.600 So anyway, there was no real reason.

00:03:21.960 It was just kind of like Trump movement, white supremacist, Richard Spencer, gone.

00:03:27.680 Now, I was let back on Twitter a month later in an equally mystical fashion.

00:03:33.240 But by 2017, we were all getting banned from payment platforms, from some web hosting companies.

00:03:41.460 I could go down the list.

00:03:43.300 Yes, there's hundreds of examples.

00:03:45.660 And a big ban occurred of a number of people, including Stefan Molyneux and myself, this summer

00:03:53.340 of 2020.

00:03:54.820 I think it was June or July, when we were unceremoniously banned.

00:03:59.880 And in a Kafkaesque manner of, you know, what did we do?

00:04:04.080 We weren't there was we didn't have strikes.

00:04:08.060 We no one was yelling vulgar language or issuing death threats.

00:04:12.740 We were simply kicked off in a coordinated fashion that happened instantaneously is clearly

00:04:17.960 coordinated and planned.

00:04:19.120 I was kicked off Facebook before that.

00:04:21.440 We've all faced these major issues.

00:04:22.900 So deep platforming is a thing.

00:04:24.140 And I think some average Trump supporters have faced de-platforming themselves.

00:04:30.100 QAnon has been just purged for, I mean, I have a difficult time exactly defending QAnon.

00:04:37.360 But regardless, QAnon has been purged from all major social media networks and so on.

00:04:47.140 And so there's a general anxiety about de-platforming.

00:04:51.120 Um, the answer that has been given to us by Republicans and by Trump himself, who's tweeted

00:04:59.960 about this dozens of times now, is that we need to remove, uh, section 230 of the Decency

00:05:08.860 and Communications Act.

00:05:10.780 So let me just read this just to give everyone some background.

00:05:14.740 So section 230 says, no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated

00:05:21.540 as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

00:05:28.800 Now, what this means is that these companies like Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube are platforms

00:05:37.520 and they are not a publisher in the sense that the New York Times is a publisher.

00:05:42.260 If the New York Times issued death threats, then you can sue both the publisher and, you know,

00:05:50.380 maybe the speaker who said them, uh, and so on.

00:05:54.180 Uh, if they give out completely false information that damages you in some way, you could potentially

00:06:00.860 sue them.

00:06:01.380 Now, what this, this act did, and this came in 1996.

00:06:05.660 So kind of right at the burgeoning, you know, era of the internet, when people were just kind

00:06:11.520 of getting online, uh, was it treated these companies like platforms.

00:06:16.540 And I think we kind of understand where they were coming from.

00:06:19.660 I think that this was actually a, a quite smart law in the sense that if you have a blog,

00:06:26.040 yes, you might want to moderate comments to some degree, but if someone can't moderate

00:06:33.340 them all and that, that takes a lot of time and someone might go into your comment section

00:06:39.460 and leave a death threat or give out false information, et cetera, and that you are not

00:06:45.580 jeopardized by that as the, the, the platform or the person writing the blog.

00:06:51.660 So this makes a lot of sense now, as time has gone by, the web isn't, hasn't, isn't just

00:07:00.300 some hobby place where you, you put out weird, wild information or, you know, put up a fan

00:07:09.040 page or have a blog that 20 people read, um, with the development of social media, social

00:07:15.260 media has replaced the mainstream media to, to, in so many ways, the mainstream media actually

00:07:20.720 kind of feeds off social media to a large degree.

00:07:24.400 And so we, we have this situation where these formerly minor sites, which in recent memory

00:07:31.480 were the wild west.

00:07:32.800 I mean, I remember going on Twitter and, you know, inward here, crazy lunatic meme there, 0.92

00:07:39.220 uh, porn here, uh, uh, you know, bizarre selling marijuana there. 0.89

00:07:44.620 I mean, it was the wild west.

00:07:46.680 It was almost like the dark web or something.

00:07:48.720 Well, now social media has, is increasingly driving mainstream media.

00:07:54.600 It's increasingly replacing mainstream media, uh, in terms of impact on all sorts of things,

00:08:00.500 culture, but the impact on elections.

00:08:03.480 And so they're feeling the sense of responsibility and they're getting, they're getting pressure from

00:08:10.280 journalists, but they're feeling the sense of responsibility to, uh, uh, curate content.

00:08:16.160 And so just little things on Twitter, you know, like you, you go to the search and they'll

00:08:20.940 give you the trending topics that are maybe algorithmically based, but they'll, they'll

00:08:25.460 curate them. 0.68

00:08:26.080 They'll kind of describe to you the latest thing of, you know, Kim Kardashian's new butt

00:08:32.020 pick and all these reactions to it or whatever they'll, they'll curate content for you.

00:08:37.160 So on some level, they are becoming a type of publisher.

00:08:41.880 Now it's still mostly all user generated, but it is a kind of curation where they're a publisher

00:08:47.900 and they feel a certain responsibility, particularly with the kind of Russia hacking, you know,

00:08:53.280 memes going through and going around them that they can't allow bad, false information out there

00:09:00.780 because it affects elections.

00:09:02.480 So social media is taking on this responsibility and they are banning people.

00:09:07.420 They are suppressing information, which we saw vividly with the Hunter Biden scandal of

00:09:12.580 a few months ago, and they are banning accounts, um, and so on.

00:09:17.700 And so we're in this transitionary stage where we don't really know what social media is going

00:09:24.660 to be right now.

00:09:25.740 And they don't know either.

00:09:27.360 And conservatives feel anxious.

00:09:29.700 They feel like they're the ones getting suppressed and the left is not.

00:09:33.260 And that's, you know, true, uh, basically, I mean, with a few minor exceptions here and

00:09:40.080 there, and they want to do something about it.

00:09:43.060 And so the, the solution that Republicans have given is that we want to remove this waiver

00:09:50.460 of liability, a kind of shield from the platforms.

00:09:54.580 And what that means from my perspective, and again, I'm, I'm, I'll avidly listen to your

00:10:01.860 rejoinder to this is that you are going to start treating Twitter as a publisher in the

00:10:07.680 sense that they are liable for, uh, content that is user generated.

00:10:13.680 It is like the, you know, the New York times is publishing a letter to the editor.

00:10:18.420 Well, they, they have to take responsibility for that user generated content at some level.

00:10:23.820 So they could be sued.

00:10:26.060 Um, I have no idea how this helps us at all outside of some kind of 40 chess ways of we

00:10:35.740 could sue them for millions of dollars and, and what, and they'd be out of a few million

00:10:41.180 dollars.

00:10:41.680 I think this removing section two 30 might very well destroy their business model, uh, in

00:10:46.820 the sense that they aren't going to be able to push people to certain content because that

00:10:52.400 is a kind of curation if they're just a platform.

00:10:55.160 Um, but the fact is, if you, if you start threatening to treat them like a publisher or, or in fact,

00:11:00.840 treat them like a publisher, then why are you surprised when they act like a publisher?

00:11:06.800 The fact is the New York times prints what it wants to print everything that's fit to print.

00:11:12.500 As they say, they don't, I, they have no responsibility to print my letter to the editor.

00:11:18.100 They can forget it, leave it printed if they want.

00:11:22.020 Um, that is what a publisher does.

00:11:24.620 It curates content.

00:11:25.940 It expresses a point of view, uh, and so on.

00:11:29.620 And the idea of Twitter, you know, being treated as a publisher and thus acting like a publisher

00:11:37.520 seems a recipe for even more intense content curation.

00:11:42.920 That is banning, uh, of users and information.

00:11:47.080 And so I, I, I, I mean, I'll, I'm, I, I will wait for your rejoinder to this, but I feel like

00:11:54.400 focusing on section two 30 is the worst approach possible.

00:12:00.140 Um, the better approach would be to simply say that this is a platform.

00:12:06.580 It is not a publisher.

00:12:08.320 We are going to continue to shield it as a publisher.

00:12:10.820 Section two 30 was proper, but it is a platform for information.

00:12:14.880 And that you as a citizen have a certain right to post that much like if I go out onto a public

00:12:25.220 sidewalk or even a private place, like say a shopping mall or a sports stadium or something

00:12:31.760 that I actually have expanded rights.

00:12:34.680 I can't go into your home and yell at you and hold up a sign saying the end is nigh, repent,

00:12:42.660 achieve salvation.

00:12:43.420 However, I do have expanded rights, even in public spaces that are treated as public to

00:12:52.160 some degree, you do have more rights in those spaces than you would say in a private home.

00:12:56.440 There are distinctions blurry line, maybe, but there are distinctions.

00:13:00.620 Uh, and I certainly have the ability to use the phone system, uh, or the, uh, uh, internet

00:13:08.760 over cable or internet over whatever as a utility.

00:13:12.160 Um, you know, the government might be listening in to my phone calls, but they, they don't have

00:13:17.500 the right to ban me if I tell dirty jokes to you, uh, over the phone and I, it is treated as a utility.

00:13:26.240 That is the approach.

00:13:27.240 We need to treat them as privately held utilities that, that are public spaces, privately held public

00:13:34.820 spaces, and that you as a citizen have a right to that.

00:13:38.340 And that means that if you get banned, you have some recourse to go to the platform and that if

00:13:45.360 you, I don't know, spend a year in exile or apologize or whatever, you are allowed back on.

00:13:52.140 Because, you know, if I, if I rob a liquor store, I might be thrown in jail for five years, but I get

00:13:59.120 out of jail at some point and I can, uh, and I can, uh, hold a job, hold a bank account, vote,

00:14:06.400 drive a car, et cetera.

00:14:08.060 You don't just lose all your rights by doing one bad thing.

00:14:13.000 And I think the same should hold for social media.

00:14:15.780 Let's say I tell a terrible joke or use an offensive word one time at the middle of the

00:14:21.200 night on Twitter, my bad, but should I therefore lose, you know, my access to Twitter for the rest

00:14:29.000 of my life?

00:14:29.740 That seems totally egregious.

00:14:32.420 And this is the proper approach to the deplatforming issue.

00:14:36.800 The two 30 is a red herring. 0.73

00:14:39.780 It will make things worse.

00:14:41.540 And it's a typical Republican trick.

00:14:44.760 Go.

00:14:45.320 Well, certainly, uh, abolishing section two 30 would make things worse.

00:14:52.680 And it is only through the lens of a scorched earth policy that it's interesting to consider

00:15:06.260 the abolition of section two 30, uh, as part of warfare against this big tech.

00:15:12.060 Uh, but ultimately the best outcome would be to fix section two 30, but we're probably

00:15:17.940 not going to have this.

00:15:19.220 So, but let's talk first about section two 30 as it is now, because the current step status

00:15:26.260 of that law and the way it is being applied, uh, is out of spirit.

00:15:30.280 I would say essentially, um, we live in a lie.

00:15:34.260 Twitter is saying that they are a platform because they want to benefit from the legal protections

00:15:39.600 of being a platform, but they are not a platform because they select users that they ban because

00:15:45.080 of political ideology, but worse than this, they act as a publisher.

00:15:48.980 When they say this claim is disputed, when they add this to any claim about voting, uh,

00:15:55.660 at this point, they are themselves creating the first event of dispute that exists on the

00:16:01.600 internet because a claim shows up and within a second Twitter labels it as disputed who disputed

00:16:07.460 it, no one except Twitter because a new claim cannot have been disputed before.

00:16:12.680 So all of this is, and of course the shadow banning, the selection of the timeline, everything

00:16:20.120 that keeps, uh, HGIDs from reaching the timeline.

00:16:23.460 This is all the action of a publisher of a selector.

00:16:27.160 So the law is not being respected.

00:16:29.540 The spirit of the law is being stepped over and is being exploited.

00:16:34.520 And we have a case of defamation within the protection that is this law is supposed to

00:16:42.420 protect, but it opens actually a space for the types of defamation that couldn't happen

00:16:49.300 at a publisher.

00:16:50.520 For example, if New York times was to say, Oh, you know, this claim about election fraud

00:16:55.420 by JF is disputed.

00:16:57.240 I could sue them because they would be attacking my credibility.

00:16:59.980 And if I could show in court, well, it would be extremely complicated, but in principle,

00:17:04.880 at least I have a right to say the New York time has defamed me by putting this disputed

00:17:11.280 label to my claims, which were true.

00:17:13.220 I don't have this possibility against Twitter and we have to examine in depth.

00:17:19.060 Why is it that section 230 ultimately protects, ends up protecting forms of defamation that couldn't

00:17:26.400 have existed elsewhere, or that could have at least been punished by law if it had happened

00:17:30.980 in the past or in publishers?

00:17:33.820 And the answer to this question is that it stems from the otherwise objectionable clause.

00:17:41.600 It stems from the fact that when they designed that law, they foresaw that, okay, there are

00:17:46.180 a couple of things that platforms may legitimately want out of their systems without it being acts

00:17:55.120 of a publisher.

00:17:56.120 It could be to exclude lewd content, violence, porn, that kind of thing.

00:18:01.300 But as they listed these potential objections, they also added otherwise objectionable, which

00:18:09.720 leaves a complete blank slate for big tech media to decide what it is that we can talk about

00:18:17.640 on the internet.

00:18:19.740 And that is a big problem.

00:18:21.000 The ideal situation we would be in is we would be in a constructive system where politicians

00:18:27.180 are actually interested at making freedom of speech being applied to larger portions of

00:18:34.120 America, including our online life.

00:18:36.160 And they would get together and say, all right, the otherwise objectionable clause is to be removed

00:18:42.080 and we need to specify better.

00:18:43.940 What do we mean when we say lewd content?

00:18:47.720 Because it's not been designed to ban center-right people who say some edgy joke.

00:18:54.440 It's been designed for extreme stuff and it should be limited to it.

00:18:59.320 Unfortunately, the original writing of the law was not limiting.

00:19:02.640 It just said, good faith, otherwise objectionable.

00:19:05.460 And that one path through which we could specify these words is not even through legislation,

00:19:11.940 but through the FCC intervention.

00:19:14.580 But Trump came to this much too much late in his presidency.

00:19:19.080 Could have started this in 2016, but he didn't.

00:19:23.020 And so we find ourselves with no solution.

00:19:25.580 Now, with the little time left of Trump, assuming that he doesn't win his legal case and gives

00:19:30.900 us four more years of presidency, we find ourselves with a little time, a little time in which

00:19:37.800 we can wreck some of the machine.

00:19:39.480 And so in this context, since we're not going to get an otherwise objectionable redaction,

00:19:45.980 why not say abolition of Section 230?

00:19:50.080 It's a position of negotiation.

00:19:52.520 It's an unrealistic leveraging position.

00:19:54.820 You've once told me that, you know, when you say we claim all of America, we don't want

00:20:00.900 to give up California even.

00:20:03.300 You once explained to me that in negotiation, you need to go a little further than what you

00:20:08.940 would want so that you can be well positioned.

00:20:11.600 And I think it's saying we want to abolish Section 230 is an extreme measure.

00:20:16.520 It won't happen in a way, by the way, because for abolishing Section 230, imagine what you

00:20:21.740 need.

00:20:22.060 You need Nancy Pelosi, you need the Democrats to get together and say, oh, yeah, let's 0.77

00:20:26.460 let's abolish Section 230, which they will never do.

00:20:31.300 Actually, Biden has explicitly told the New York Times that he wants to get rid of Section 1.00

00:20:37.380 230.

00:20:38.920 He told that in I can look back at the reasoning, but that was actually said in his interview

00:20:44.840 that he gave to them before they endorsed him for president.

00:20:48.100 So I don't know if he's going to do it or not.

00:20:50.260 I mean, the default position seems to just be the status quo, you know, misery continuing.

00:20:55.660 But he actually has come out in favor of that.

00:20:59.680 Let me and I'll let you talk some more.

00:21:01.300 But let me just address some of these points that you brought up.

00:21:04.960 Why are we negotiating with big tech?

00:21:07.720 This is not there needs not be any negotiation with them.

00:21:12.900 Through net neutrality and through Section 230, they are driving their car on the government

00:21:22.640 road, basically.

00:21:24.500 They are not forging new paths out in the wilderness.

00:21:29.340 They are driving on a national highway and the government sets the speed limit.

00:21:34.540 So there's no negotiation that needs to take place.

00:21:37.580 It's simply I mean, I don't I'm not a lawyer or a constitutional lawyer, so I'll leave this

00:21:43.920 up to other people.

00:21:44.520 But it seems like you could even do this in an executive order.

00:21:48.500 Just basically say that if something is legal in public, then it should be legal on your

00:21:56.340 platform, which is what it is.

00:21:58.180 It's not a publisher.

00:21:58.900 So therefore, I mean, for instance, YouTube has a big problem with porn and some really

00:22:06.440 creepy stuff regarding children's videos.

00:22:11.480 And they've handled that by creating like kids YouTube.

00:22:14.460 And they've done many things in that, all of which I support, by the way.

00:22:19.180 I think that they need to do that.

00:22:20.740 And they are responsible for that, you know, morally, if not legally.

00:22:25.140 But I don't know if you remember, but a few years ago, there was a lot of kind of

00:22:28.900 creepiness going on with children's videos on YouTube.

00:22:33.660 Kids are using this platform more and more.

00:22:36.340 I think this is they absolutely have a moral and likely legal responsibility to do that.

00:22:41.960 But those kinds of things are illegal in public.

00:22:47.640 Most speech, I mean, even extreme speech that you and I don't take part in.

00:22:53.160 The N word is that just easy example. 0.92

00:22:56.840 This is legal.

00:22:57.960 You can say that word.

00:23:00.600 I mean, Canada might be different, but in the United States, you could go around using

00:23:05.120 that word.

00:23:06.400 Now, at some point, it becomes harassment if you're yelling at someone or threatening them,

00:23:11.720 of course.

00:23:12.720 But you can use it.

00:23:14.560 And you can say pretty much 100% of everything I've ever said legally.

00:23:21.980 There is no law against it.

00:23:24.240 And so it's just an easy fix.

00:23:26.260 You don't need to negotiate with Jack or Mark or Jack or Zuck.

00:23:32.460 You just do it.

00:23:34.320 And they'll secretly thank you because it will save them money because they can fire a bunch 0.97

00:23:41.020 of blue haired white people and Indian SH-1B visa holders who are furiously and incoherently 1.00

00:23:51.480 censoring our speech.

00:23:55.100 And you just do it.

00:23:56.780 And I just don't understand why we're even going there. 1.00

00:24:00.840 I mean, I get it that you want it scorched earth and just fuck them all kind of stuff. 0.99

00:24:06.620 But, you know, why? 0.99

00:24:08.760 And this is kind of my other issue with this.

00:24:11.220 I remember hearing this from like alt-white personalities and the left.

00:24:15.940 So from like Elizabeth Warren to Laura Loomer, you hear this.

00:24:20.860 We need to break up big tech so that they stop censoring us.

00:24:25.560 Do we actually?

00:24:28.280 Actually, I want to be on YouTube.

00:24:30.660 I am really grateful for BitChute and I wish them the best luck in the world because without 0.99

00:24:38.740 them, I don't know what I would do.

00:24:40.620 But I'll just be honest.

00:24:42.260 I would prefer to be on the largest platform on the planet.

00:24:46.440 That is YouTube.

00:24:47.560 I get more views that way.

00:24:49.280 There's more interaction.

00:24:50.780 I am not against these companies.

00:24:53.200 I am not against Monopoly.

00:24:54.760 I don't have some kind of almost, I don't know, desire that we should have all these

00:25:00.360 mom and pop video servicing companies.

00:25:04.120 I actually want to be on monopolistic global platforms.

00:25:09.300 That is, I don't want to go on 20 platforms and tweet the same thing.

00:25:13.660 I want to tweet once on Twitter and it can potentially reach everyone.

00:25:18.420 It can reach Housewife in Missouri.

00:25:20.900 It could reach the President of the United States.

00:25:22.500 I want to go on YouTube and take advantage of its monopoly and do that.

00:25:28.140 We don't want an internet that is fragmented and disconnected.

00:25:34.860 There are so many benefits to monopoly.

00:25:39.540 It's just, it benefits us.

00:25:42.100 It's easy.

00:25:42.680 I don't want to have 20 different payment processors and go to a customer or a donor and be like,

00:25:48.900 well, if you have a Visa card, use this one.

00:25:50.680 If you're a Canadian, you have American Express, use that one.

00:25:53.320 If you're like, I don't want that.

00:25:54.800 I want one thing.

00:25:56.520 It's just so much monopolies are the best friend of users and dissidents alike.

00:26:02.620 So I'm not, I'm not anti big tech.

00:26:05.500 I might dislike them personally, but they offer services that are vital to dissidents.

00:26:12.400 So why not just make their lives easier with an executive order or perhaps legislation,

00:26:18.560 which could get support or could have gotten support when the Republicans were in control

00:26:23.700 and might very well get support with Democrats in control.

00:26:26.420 You just have to pitch it differently.

00:26:28.520 You just be like, the left is being centered, censored.

00:26:31.720 Black Lives Matter doesn't have a voice anymore.

00:26:33.840 What are we going to do about this stuff?

00:26:35.300 You just pitch it in some way and you present it as it's a public, a privately held public

00:26:42.100 space.

00:26:43.280 End of statement.

00:26:44.620 No negotiation.

00:26:46.100 No need to burn it all down.

00:26:49.220 No need to play hardball.

00:26:51.780 Just do it.

00:26:52.860 It's the government.

00:26:53.840 They have this power.

00:26:55.220 The internet is, is literally a government operation.

00:27:00.180 I mean, it was developed by the government.

00:27:03.120 It is legally protected by the government.

00:27:06.260 It is the infrastructure is to a large degree, they're not entirely governmental.

00:27:10.840 What's the issue?

00:27:12.220 Just set the speed limit.

00:27:15.000 Well, uh, that's a beautiful dream, but the big problem we're faced with is that the,

00:27:20.500 the elite, uh, the people who control the government are not interested in this.

00:27:26.460 They are very much interested in seeing, uh, big tech do the dirty job that they cannot

00:27:32.600 possibly do under the first amendment.

00:27:34.560 Uh, so you won't get, uh, and I'm reading the news item from Biden wanting to abolish section

00:27:42.580 230 and they say, yes, he wants to abolish it for the contrary reason to Trump.

00:27:47.320 He wants to abolish it because essentially he wants to sue platforms more.

00:27:52.080 Uh, that being said, studying this possibility, given that we won't have a reasonable fix of

00:27:59.020 the law because there's just too much interest into silencing dissent, both on the side of

00:28:04.860 the Antifa that are like, oh my God, white supremacy is harassing me on 24 seven.

00:28:10.260 I hear it in my head, even when it's not there.

00:28:13.260 Uh, and of course I don't want to see it on the internet.

00:28:17.080 You could then sue Twitter for platforming Richard Spencer.

00:28:21.980 A Antifa could say, this is a, they're publishing Richard Spencer's content, which has traumatized

00:28:28.400 me and I have, I have damages and therefore I'm, but I'm, I'm going to sue Twitter.

00:28:33.420 I mean, why do we want this outcome?

00:28:35.960 Um, well, here it is because first we have to recognize that the current state of the

00:28:41.700 law, uh, advantages, the mainstream elite, the advantage on the side of the left, it

00:28:48.860 helps them side with Antifa and say, oh my God, this whole harassment on the internet is

00:28:53.780 a big problem.

00:28:55.060 Racism is a big problem.

00:28:56.900 They side with them on the side of the center, right?

00:29:00.000 Uh, you have within the mind of a, of a Will Chamberlain, for example, within the mind of

00:29:05.660 these people, they are acquiring the monopoly power that they are removing from you from,

00:29:13.280 from their point of view, they are the winners of this game of censorship because they think

00:29:18.680 it's never going to reach them probably, uh, wrongfully because it's going to, but for

00:29:24.480 now they think that they are the winners of this game where their competition is being

00:29:28.980 outlawed by effectively big tech.

00:29:31.640 So no one has an interest in pushing for this.

00:29:35.580 So in, in the, the, the circumstance where no one will do something reasonable, why not

00:29:40.800 agree that we can all do together something unreasonable, which is to, I appreciate your

00:29:49.920 honesty on this matter, but didn't Trump have an interest in this because Trump and, and,

00:29:56.880 and I'm not just blowing smoke here.

00:29:59.300 I don't think Trump would have been elected in 2016 without the alt-right writ large.

00:30:05.720 That is without the crazy Twitter memes and the edginess, the bad boy quality to the alt-right.

00:30:13.560 It gave him this, umph, this, this, this, this non non tangible, but, but, but, but maybe

00:30:21.140 non measurable, but, but, but, but essential just vibe that allowed him to be not just a

00:30:28.400 Republican candidate, but a, a, a, the candidate of the internet, the candidate of revolution.

00:30:34.560 And he, he, he, he needed that.

00:30:37.240 And he actually didn't have it.

00:30:39.140 He, he had a lot of wackiness.

00:30:41.100 He had QAnon, he had the conservatives and whatever, but he actually didn't have that

00:30:44.860 little thing.

00:30:45.480 That little thing was missing in 2020 and he didn't win.

00:30:48.660 And so wouldn't he be, or have been motivated to do this?

00:30:54.980 Um, the, the answer is he should have been, but Trump has no insight in the world.

00:31:01.580 Trump is surrounded by people who are deceiving him and he's not intelligent enough himself

00:31:07.180 to draw the right conclusion that you just drew.

00:31:10.200 Now I've been hanging out on 4chan throughout this election period of 2020, and I've seen

00:31:17.480 the memes, the mimetic powers have reversed.

00:31:20.700 And, uh, earlier you mentioned that you may have given a nudge to Biden.

00:31:25.920 Actually, when I was on 4chan and I saw the people starting to meme with Biden, with the 0.99

00:31:31.860 ice cream cone, and he was like, I don't give a shit. 0.97

00:31:35.280 I'm just the, I'm the tough guy this time. 1.00

00:31:37.880 And I don't give a shit if my son has dick pics of himself and, uh, just hanging out with 1.00

00:31:43.800 Eastern prostitutes, no problem. 1.00

00:31:46.100 I'm eating my ice cream and I don't care. 0.96

00:31:48.520 Uh, this to me, and combined with the analysis of the statistics of the vote, which shows

00:31:54.380 that essentially what led to the Trump defeat is that he's gained vote within minorities in

00:32:00.180 big centers where he wouldn't have won anyway.

00:32:03.120 And he's lost vote in white populations.

00:32:06.740 That was what was allowing him to win in 2016.

00:32:10.580 So I think you did more than a nudge.

00:32:12.300 I think you totally finished Trump.

00:32:14.900 You are absolutely the reason why.

00:32:19.400 Well, I mean...

00:32:20.760 Because with the, the amount of censorship, the amount of smearing that you could have

00:32:26.300 caused this, that it could even cross my mind that Richard Spencer himself is responsible

00:32:31.880 for the entire result of 2020.

00:32:34.720 That is a wonderful thought.

00:32:37.200 It shows that you can do a lot with very little.

00:32:39.680 Well, I think your tongue might be a little bit in your cheek right there, but I, it's

00:32:45.560 not totally wrong though, what you're saying.

00:32:49.360 And, and I'm, I'm not claiming that I did it, but it, it was a little piece of it.

00:32:55.360 And it is interesting.

00:32:57.200 Trump gained all of this support in all of these big cities where he's claiming fraud.

00:33:03.100 So like, it's funny, like he, he did amazing.

00:33:08.400 I mean, he lost, but he did amazing in like New York.

00:33:11.020 In the real vote.

00:33:12.160 In the legal votes.

00:33:13.520 Yeah.

00:33:13.780 In the legal votes.

00:33:14.100 He won the legal votes.

00:33:17.980 Anyway, it's, it's weird, like weird.

00:33:22.000 I mean, everything I've noticed you, you can't predict, like you can look at like the broad

00:33:27.820 trajectory, but you, it's hard to predict like current events because it is stranger than

00:33:32.340 fiction.

00:33:32.660 It's like just the weirdest thing you'd imagine actually happens and you have to react to it.

00:33:36.860 But anyway, yeah.

00:33:40.040 So I, I don't know, but I, I think that going forward, if this is, I mean, as we're recording

00:33:47.380 this and I'll try to get this up right away, because this is quite topical.

00:33:51.280 They're doing, I believe a defense appropriations act or something like that in Congress.

00:33:55.560 And Trump wanted it to two 30, to be added to the defense appropriations act.

00:34:01.720 And he said, this is a matter of national security.

00:34:04.040 Now, when you say that, that's, that leads me to believe that you want to ban more people

00:34:09.100 that you're claiming that like ISIS is tweeting and we've got a, or something.

00:34:13.440 I mean, that, that seems to be the implication.

00:34:15.200 I don't know if there's any intended implication to whatever Trump says.

00:34:19.620 He's just talking out of his, you know what, uh, but the, we might actually get this now

00:34:25.340 it's not been added as of today.

00:34:27.520 This is Friday.

00:34:28.520 Um, but we might get something like this.

00:34:31.420 There's reason to believe that we would get it under Biden.

00:34:34.800 And I think that what will happen, um, if two 30 is taken away is, is just going to be

00:34:42.960 terrible for us.

00:34:44.140 Um, but let's explore this then because we have a disagreement, uh, what happens when

00:34:51.860 section two 30 goes away?

00:34:53.500 So that's the scorched earth path.

00:34:55.200 And I love it because what do you have?

00:34:57.580 You have a central providers like Twitter unable essentially to provide the diversity of opinion

00:35:03.900 that they've been providing.

00:35:05.140 So heavy on censorship so much so that now the network effect that, that benefits only them

00:35:11.560 and as a monopoly start spreading.

00:35:14.520 And suddenly you have an interest in being located, having your servers located outside

00:35:18.820 the U S suddenly you have an interest for decentralized stuff like Bitcoin.

00:35:23.440 This is, this, this is where I feel like a fish in the water.

00:35:27.080 This is where I want the internet to be headed.

00:35:29.680 And so if section two 30 is abolished, I predict that in five years, a site like Gab will have 1.00

00:35:35.800 been gaining in power and even perhaps an alternative to Parler and certainly Bitcoin.

00:35:41.340 All of these things will rise because they are decentralized and by nature, not suable instead

00:35:47.260 of having a law that, which is weak because the law is subject to elite manipulation.

00:35:53.020 Instead of having a law protecting free speech, why not have the infrastructure so resilient,

00:35:59.180 so powerful that it's not possible anymore to sue a central entity for the, the, the,

00:36:05.580 the sentences of a random person on the internet.

00:36:09.420 Um, I, I, you make a really good case, but I think I would shout back at you.

00:36:15.180 That's a beautiful dream.

00:36:17.300 Much as much as what you said to me, I, I, I, I see where you're going and I think you've

00:36:22.640 made the best case for it, but I'm not sure I buy it.

00:36:26.020 Well, uh, you have to buy it because it's happening even on their section two 30 Bitcoin

00:36:31.940 is at the all time high back to the all time.

00:36:34.640 I parlay has never been as popular.

00:36:37.400 Gab is at his top.

00:36:38.800 BitChute is at the top. 1.00

00:36:40.440 Everything is going well.

00:36:41.740 It there's, we just need a little nudge.

00:36:44.640 And this process of freeing the internet will continue.

00:36:48.420 The forces of freedom on the internet are profound and they never give up.

00:36:53.620 And you may think that they are, uh, kind of, uh, weak at some points.

00:36:58.080 They, they weaken, they slow down, but they're always there and they're always going to keep

00:37:02.640 advancing.

00:37:03.340 And if section two 30 was to be abolished, it could be the last nudge needed to fall down

00:37:08.900 the cliff.

00:37:10.860 You make a very good case.

00:37:12.420 I'll actually allow you to have the last word on this.

00:37:15.040 All right.

00:37:15.700 Well, those are my last word.

00:37:16.880 And my last words, I guess would be, I'm extremely happy to have talked to you again

00:37:21.120 because I don't invite you on the show anymore, but it's in no way a denial of our friendship.

00:37:27.300 Oh, well that, that is good to hear.

00:37:28.740 I was personally miffed, but, uh, it's, it's good to hear that it's just about YouTube censorship.

00:37:35.800 Yeah.

00:37:36.320 Uh, so anyway, we should, uh, we can check back on on this because the story isn't over.

00:37:41.240 Um, if I were to make a prediction, I would say that the misery is going to continue.

00:37:46.860 In the sense that this, it two 30 won't be abolished and the status quo will just continue.

00:37:52.160 And we're going to have a difficult time navigating being on a big platform, um, which is half

00:37:58.620 platform, half curation site.

00:38:02.360 So, but then if Trump follows up on his threat, this will be the continuation of the status

00:38:07.160 quo, but less money in the pockets of the CIA and army and all these people who are going

00:38:13.240 to be funded by this defense act.

00:38:16.440 Well, then they, they might cut the payments they give to me then.

00:38:20.060 That would be.

00:38:20.600 So, I can't support this live.

00:38:39.700 Okay.

00:38:40.620 So recording is now on.

00:38:46.760 JF, how are you?

00:38:48.520 I'm doing great.

00:38:49.520 What about you?

00:38:50.960 Well, I'm doing fine.

00:38:53.140 It's snowy out here.

00:38:55.040 It's a winter wonderland.

00:38:57.300 Um, I'm sure it's the same in Montreal as well.

00:39:01.340 It's a beautiful city.

00:39:02.340 I'm no more in Montreal.

00:39:03.700 I live with Ron from civilization in the very close to the North Pole, but it's, uh, it's

00:39:09.680 very cold here.

00:39:10.680 Yes.

00:39:11.320 We'll say hello to Santa for me.

00:39:13.760 Yes.

00:39:14.980 I've been a bit naughty this year, but that's usual.

00:39:18.540 So, he's used to it.

00:39:20.540 Um, you've been naughty because you've been standing for Biden.

00:39:25.820 I've been seeing you, uh, full on the Biden, the Biden, uh, train.

00:39:31.000 Is it the train or is it a Cadillac?

00:39:33.700 It's a Cadillac convertible.

00:39:35.640 Yeah.

00:39:37.380 Yeah.

00:39:38.000 It's awesome.

00:39:38.800 It's a vintage, cool vibes.

00:39:41.600 We're wearing, he wears aviator Ray-Bans.

00:39:43.340 I wear Wayfair's, but it's all good.

00:39:47.300 Um, yeah, it's, it's been fun.

00:39:50.000 I've, um, yeah, my transformation to, um, white suburban liberal professional is complete.

00:39:58.120 Now, what was your goal with, uh, supporting Biden and did you accomplish it?

00:40:03.820 Well, I, I think I did to a certain degree.

00:40:08.560 I mean, my, my goal was complex, um, and I'll, I'll just sum it up real briefly.

00:40:18.280 Uh, I, I think there is a large degree of toxicity with the Trump movement, not, not

00:40:26.660 in the way that that word is often used by liberals or whatever, but just in the sense

00:40:31.840 that, um, we have a sense that we are winning and we can just trust the plan and he's one

00:40:38.900 of us and he's going to do all this stuff for us and so on.

00:40:42.380 And, uh, in 2016, I think there was a, a kind of hopefulness and potentiality to all

00:40:50.400 that.

00:40:50.740 And I think by at least 2018, but probably earlier, I, I felt like it was all a lie and

00:40:57.500 there is a, a complete absence of policy vision, uh, on, in the Trump administration.

00:41:03.620 We'll, we'll actually talk a little bit about that today.

00:41:06.280 I see, I think there, there's going to be a stark disagreement on section 230 and that's,

00:41:10.700 that's good.

00:41:11.180 Um, we'll, uh, you know, have at it, uh, but there was just an absence of policy vision,

00:41:16.360 but this, you know, sense that we're winning and he's, he's one of us, he's our guy.

00:41:21.220 And I wanted to get rid of that.

00:41:23.200 Um, I think that the Democrats have set them up, set themselves up in a remarkable position

00:41:29.660 where they can be a hegemonic party if they want to, but they're a hegemonic party in a

00:41:37.400 moment of extreme polarization, uh, to the point where both sides think the other side

00:41:44.380 is evil.

00:41:44.780 And I think actually, no matter what happened in November 3rd, 2020, I think who the loser

00:41:51.020 would be claiming election fraud or, or some, you know, thing like that.

00:41:55.660 We, we're, we just hate each other.

00:41:57.420 We're just at this point where we don't have no trust in one another.

00:42:01.440 Um, and so the, the, the Democrats are in this just remarkable position, but I, I just

00:42:06.220 wanted to break away from this, um, break the chains, just get away from this notion that

00:42:12.320 we have to support the fake, right, the phony, right.

00:42:16.520 It is the phony, right.

00:42:17.520 And that actually we can be ourselves and that as liberals are hegemonic, at least politically,

00:42:22.780 they're going to have a legitimacy crisis, but at least politically they're hegemonic.

00:42:26.860 Um, they can actually do some things that are good.

00:42:32.540 And the Republican, the, the, the era of Republican congressional dominance has been one of just an

00:42:39.680 absence of vision.

00:42:40.640 I can't name a single thing that they've accomplished, you know, well before Trump.

00:42:46.220 And, uh, yeah, I just wanted to kind of break away and, uh, you know, to some degree, um,

00:42:52.820 kind of blow people's minds, you could say, but, but to some degree, kind of give the middle finger

00:42:58.440 to Biden himself who was saying, you know, like, oh, I decided to run for presidency after

00:43:04.400 Charlottesville or, or some just obviously no one, I don't think a single person believes that.

00:43:10.640 Uh, that he's being genuine.

00:43:12.680 That's just some line that was fed to him.

00:43:14.940 Uh, but I, I, I kind of like saying, look, you don't understand me.

00:43:20.040 You don't understand what that event was about.

00:43:22.540 You don't understand what I want and how I think about things and, and just to kind of break free

00:43:26.240 of it.

00:43:26.520 So, you know, it's a liberating thing.

00:43:28.800 It's one thing to want to exert leverage on the Republican party, but, uh, are you, are

00:43:34.960 you enthusiastic about getting better from the Democrat party?

00:43:38.380 Are you just trying to destroy the Republican party as it is to eventually reform something

00:43:44.200 better?

00:43:44.600 Uh, I, I think that the, the GOP is in a precarious position and, um, whether I added just a little

00:43:54.680 bit to that in terms of expressing my support for Biden, maybe arguable.

00:44:00.880 Um, millions of people did hear about this through some form, either through my Twitter

00:44:06.620 account or through news reports on it that were, I saw news reports in the Guardian and,

00:44:11.580 you know, so on.

00:44:12.920 Dinesh D'Souza tweets, no doubt have tons of, um, you know, uh, uh, um, impact.

00:44:20.360 Uh, so yeah, I might've had a little bit of, of nudge here and there.

00:44:25.300 It might've not been decisive, but it was a nudge.

00:44:27.660 Um, but I, I do want us to get beyond conservatism.

00:44:31.760 I think the, the American right is the imminent enemy, um, towards, you know, having a real right

00:44:39.040 that's moving in the right direction.

00:44:40.120 But beyond that, uh, no, I, I think you could make easily make arguments that on a whole

00:44:47.600 host of issues, um, the, the Biden and, and, and Trump, it's just a wash of who exactly

00:44:55.160 is better.

00:44:55.940 And on certain issues, I think we actually, what liberals are putting forward are better.

00:45:01.480 I mean, if you actually care about Medicare for all or UBI, uh, or so on, um, which party

00:45:10.480 is more likely to bring that to us?

00:45:12.380 I think the answer is clear.

00:45:13.940 Which party is at least, at least to what they explicitly promise better for, um, Americans

00:45:23.140 who are struggling.

00:45:23.980 I think it's clearly the Democrats and, and in terms of foreign policy, I mean, it's again,

00:45:27.920 a bit of a wash, but, um, I, I think you could, I could make an argument that, that Trump, uh,

00:45:35.580 even in his last weeks in office might very well be, uh, pursuing something very bad with

00:45:41.480 Iran.

00:45:41.860 So, uh, yeah, but, uh, that's what I would say.

00:45:46.860 Well, I don't expect Trump to do anything interventionist at, uh, in foreign policy, especially

00:45:53.400 given the, the amount of work he has to deploy on the fraud investigations.

00:45:57.620 Right.

00:45:58.100 But I think that the, the things you mentioned about Joe Biden, well, I don't want these,

00:46:02.120 I don't want Medicare for all. 0.94

00:46:03.800 I don't want a UBI, but I would understand that you want this, but it comes with a, it's

00:46:09.920 a poison gift. 0.50

00:46:10.840 It comes with access to bathroom for trans people of the other sex.

00:46:16.640 It comes with potentially foreign wires and less wires.

00:46:19.980 It's a large price to pay.

00:46:21.400 It comes with inflation too.

00:46:23.020 If he gets into money printing and stimulus checks.

00:46:25.840 Well, I mean, Trump has gotten into money printing, uh, to say the least, um, if you look back

00:46:33.300 at recent history, uh, in terms of deficit spending, I mean, the Republicans are clearly

00:46:38.620 worse, uh, in terms of the, uh, the, the tranny stuff and, and so on that is happening under 0.99

00:46:46.980 Trump.

00:46:47.400 I, I don't, I mean, yes, it's true that people who support Trump have healthy instincts on 0.85

00:46:54.360 these matters and think that it's, you know, an outrage, disgusting.

00:46:58.680 Um, but there, I don't think there's any evidence that a Trump presidency brings it into this.

00:47:04.900 And, and to the contrary, um, the transformation of the right itself, at least aesthetically and

00:47:13.000 culturally has become so much more pro-gay and pro-transsexual or transvestitism than I could 0.62

00:47:22.420 ever imagine.

00:47:23.280 And now granted that maybe you don't fully blame Trump.

00:47:26.860 That's a long-term trajectory that he just happened to preside over.

00:47:31.020 But I wonder if he isn't uniquely responsible for the lady maga-ization of his movement, that 1.00

00:47:41.840 there's something about him that actually is unique that brought all of this nonsense into

00:47:48.360 the right, because you never saw this. 0.81

00:47:49.900 I mean, to 2012, the idea of a gay man transvestite singing YMCA with Trump supporters while waving

00:48:00.380 a rainbow and Israeli flag, that is not happening in the Brooks Brothers era of Mitt Romney.

00:48:09.580 And it is happening under Trump.

00:48:12.120 Now, whether that's his fault, uh, we could debate it, but he does seem to be kind of uniquely

00:48:16.380 responsible for this.

00:48:19.900 Deeply, uh, in Trump and we saw it in the apprentice way before he got into politics, there's something

00:48:25.740 deeply pro-LGBT in him.

00:48:28.020 And I remember there was this scene in the apprentice where he finds out that one of the

00:48:32.000 contestants is gay and he's asking to the others, were you aware of this, that he's gay?

00:48:36.820 Uh, but he seems very open at it.

00:48:38.740 And he's always been extending the olive branch to the LGBT community.

00:48:42.880 But let's take an example on which Trump clearly will differentiate himself from Biden.

00:48:48.700 Critical race theory course and white guilt being essentially promoted in the federal

00:48:54.380 government.

00:48:55.260 This is a price you're going to have to pay under Biden and that Trump clearly abolished.

00:49:00.000 He didn't clearly abolish.

00:49:02.880 He basically wanted to look into funding, uh, with regard to critical race theory in the

00:49:09.860 federal government.

00:49:10.960 Um, now where is critical race theory coming from?

00:49:15.780 Uh, it is not coming from the government.

00:49:18.440 The government is in fact late to the game.

00:49:20.760 The critical race theory is coming from, uh, public intellectuals is coming from academia and

00:49:27.440 it has been coming for the last 40 years.

00:49:31.360 Um, so, I mean, I'm, I'm obviously not opposed.

00:49:36.640 I mean, I, I, in fact, support just taking away funding from these people in the federal

00:49:42.780 government.

00:49:43.240 Um, but the notion that these kinds of things are, are anything else than a kind of cosmetic,

00:49:50.920 you know, uh, rebuff and, and, and kind of social signal to his supporters.

00:49:57.440 I, I think it's a bit naive.

00:49:59.980 All right.

00:50:01.060 So we can get the host here, JF.

00:50:03.740 Yeah.

00:50:04.020 Yeah.

00:50:05.360 You're like, all right.

00:50:06.340 Next question.

RadixJournal - December 04, 2020

Fahrenheit 230

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript