Fahrenheit 230
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Summary
J.F. Garipay and I debate the future of the internet, and the role of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects websites and their users from being sued for their speech on the internet by other users.
Transcript
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It's Tuesday, December 4th, 2020, and welcome back to The McSpencer Group, an unrehearsed,
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Joining me is the legendary G.F. Jean-François Garipay, an homme qui croit que manger du fromage
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Social media deplatforming is an existential crisis for our time.
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Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube have become, in effect, the mainstream media, replacing
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As they've risen to prominence, they seem less like free speech bastions and more like
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institutions with an agenda to promote their preferred messages and advertiser-friendly
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Donald Trump thinks we can crack this nut by removing big tech's immunity to lawsuits through
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So we have some big issues that I want to talk about.
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Now, de-platforming, let me set the scene here and then we can kind of talk about it.
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Because this is a very specific issue in the sense of this aspect of the Decency and Communications
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But it's also a really big issue that affects you and me personally, in fact, and affects
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So de-platforming is an issue that was around maybe five or 10 years ago.
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You would occasionally hear of someone maybe selling marijuana or maybe publishing what,
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you know, quote unquote, white supremacy articles on the internet.
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And in my experience, because I've been doing this for a while, I was not affected by de-platforming.
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And in fact, Silicon Valley's platforming was vital to my business, such as it was, in
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the sense that my ability to use Stripe, to use Squarespace, to use PayPal, to use all of
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these kind of layers on top of Stripe were essential.
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And by about 2016, things started to dramatically change.
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I remember right after Trump's election, I was kicked off Twitter for really no reason.
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I mean, my last tweets before I was kicked off were actually, I think my last tweet before
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I was being kicked off, ironically, was a response to David Frum.
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And he actually wrote an article saying I was about to respond back to him and his account
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It was just kind of like Trump movement, white supremacist, Richard Spencer, gone.
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Now, I was let back on Twitter a month later in an equally mystical fashion.
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But by 2017, we were all getting banned from payment platforms, from some web hosting companies.
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And a big ban occurred of a number of people, including Stefan Molyneux and myself, this summer
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I think it was June or July, when we were unceremoniously banned.
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And in a Kafkaesque manner of, you know, what did we do?
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We no one was yelling vulgar language or issuing death threats.
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We were simply kicked off in a coordinated fashion that happened instantaneously is clearly
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And I think some average Trump supporters have faced de-platforming themselves.
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QAnon has been just purged for, I mean, I have a difficult time exactly defending QAnon.
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But regardless, QAnon has been purged from all major social media networks and so on.
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And so there's a general anxiety about de-platforming.
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Um, the answer that has been given to us by Republicans and by Trump himself, who's tweeted
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about this dozens of times now, is that we need to remove, uh, section 230 of the Decency
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So let me just read this just to give everyone some background.
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So section 230 says, no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated
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as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
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Now, what this means is that these companies like Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube are platforms
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and they are not a publisher in the sense that the New York Times is a publisher.
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If the New York Times issued death threats, then you can sue both the publisher and, you know,
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maybe the speaker who said them, uh, and so on.
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Uh, if they give out completely false information that damages you in some way, you could potentially
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Now, what this, this act did, and this came in 1996.
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So kind of right at the burgeoning, you know, era of the internet, when people were just kind
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of getting online, uh, was it treated these companies like platforms.
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And I think we kind of understand where they were coming from.
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I think that this was actually a, a quite smart law in the sense that if you have a blog,
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yes, you might want to moderate comments to some degree, but if someone can't moderate
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them all and that, that takes a lot of time and someone might go into your comment section
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and leave a death threat or give out false information, et cetera, and that you are not
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jeopardized by that as the, the, the platform or the person writing the blog.
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So this makes a lot of sense now, as time has gone by, the web isn't, hasn't, isn't just
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some hobby place where you, you put out weird, wild information or, you know, put up a fan
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page or have a blog that 20 people read, um, with the development of social media, social
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media has replaced the mainstream media to, to, in so many ways, the mainstream media actually
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kind of feeds off social media to a large degree.
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And so we, we have this situation where these formerly minor sites, which in recent memory
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I mean, I remember going on Twitter and, you know, inward here, crazy lunatic meme there,
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uh, porn here, uh, uh, you know, bizarre selling marijuana there.
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Well, now social media has, is increasingly driving mainstream media.
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It's increasingly replacing mainstream media, uh, in terms of impact on all sorts of things,
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And so they're feeling the sense of responsibility and they're getting, they're getting pressure from
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journalists, but they're feeling the sense of responsibility to, uh, uh, curate content.
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And so just little things on Twitter, you know, like you, you go to the search and they'll
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give you the trending topics that are maybe algorithmically based, but they'll, they'll
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They'll kind of describe to you the latest thing of, you know, Kim Kardashian's new butt
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pick and all these reactions to it or whatever they'll, they'll curate content for you.
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So on some level, they are becoming a type of publisher.
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Now it's still mostly all user generated, but it is a kind of curation where they're a publisher
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and they feel a certain responsibility, particularly with the kind of Russia hacking, you know,
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memes going through and going around them that they can't allow bad, false information out there
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So social media is taking on this responsibility and they are banning people.
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They are suppressing information, which we saw vividly with the Hunter Biden scandal of
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a few months ago, and they are banning accounts, um, and so on.
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And so we're in this transitionary stage where we don't really know what social media is going
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They feel like they're the ones getting suppressed and the left is not.
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And that's, you know, true, uh, basically, I mean, with a few minor exceptions here and
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And so the, the solution that Republicans have given is that we want to remove this waiver
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of liability, a kind of shield from the platforms.
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And what that means from my perspective, and again, I'm, I'm, I'll avidly listen to your
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rejoinder to this is that you are going to start treating Twitter as a publisher in the
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sense that they are liable for, uh, content that is user generated.
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It is like the, you know, the New York times is publishing a letter to the editor.
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Well, they, they have to take responsibility for that user generated content at some level.
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Um, I have no idea how this helps us at all outside of some kind of 40 chess ways of we
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could sue them for millions of dollars and, and what, and they'd be out of a few million
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I think this removing section two 30 might very well destroy their business model, uh, in
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the sense that they aren't going to be able to push people to certain content because that
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is a kind of curation if they're just a platform.
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Um, but the fact is, if you, if you start threatening to treat them like a publisher or, or in fact,
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treat them like a publisher, then why are you surprised when they act like a publisher?
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The fact is the New York times prints what it wants to print everything that's fit to print.
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As they say, they don't, I, they have no responsibility to print my letter to the editor.
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They can forget it, leave it printed if they want.
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And the idea of Twitter, you know, being treated as a publisher and thus acting like a publisher
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seems a recipe for even more intense content curation.
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And so I, I, I, I mean, I'll, I'm, I, I will wait for your rejoinder to this, but I feel like
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focusing on section two 30 is the worst approach possible.
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Um, the better approach would be to simply say that this is a platform.
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We are going to continue to shield it as a publisher.
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Section two 30 was proper, but it is a platform for information.
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And that you as a citizen have a certain right to post that much like if I go out onto a public
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sidewalk or even a private place, like say a shopping mall or a sports stadium or something
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I can't go into your home and yell at you and hold up a sign saying the end is nigh, repent,
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However, I do have expanded rights, even in public spaces that are treated as public to
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some degree, you do have more rights in those spaces than you would say in a private home.
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There are distinctions blurry line, maybe, but there are distinctions.
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Uh, and I certainly have the ability to use the phone system, uh, or the, uh, uh, internet
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over cable or internet over whatever as a utility.
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Um, you know, the government might be listening in to my phone calls, but they, they don't have
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the right to ban me if I tell dirty jokes to you, uh, over the phone and I, it is treated as a utility.
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We need to treat them as privately held utilities that, that are public spaces, privately held public
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spaces, and that you as a citizen have a right to that.
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And that means that if you get banned, you have some recourse to go to the platform and that if
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you, I don't know, spend a year in exile or apologize or whatever, you are allowed back on.
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Because, you know, if I, if I rob a liquor store, I might be thrown in jail for five years, but I get
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out of jail at some point and I can, uh, and I can, uh, hold a job, hold a bank account, vote,
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You don't just lose all your rights by doing one bad thing.
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And I think the same should hold for social media.
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Let's say I tell a terrible joke or use an offensive word one time at the middle of the
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night on Twitter, my bad, but should I therefore lose, you know, my access to Twitter for the rest
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And this is the proper approach to the deplatforming issue.
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Well, certainly, uh, abolishing section two 30 would make things worse.
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And it is only through the lens of a scorched earth policy that it's interesting to consider
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the abolition of section two 30, uh, as part of warfare against this big tech.
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Uh, but ultimately the best outcome would be to fix section two 30, but we're probably
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So, but let's talk first about section two 30 as it is now, because the current step status
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of that law and the way it is being applied, uh, is out of spirit.
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Twitter is saying that they are a platform because they want to benefit from the legal protections
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of being a platform, but they are not a platform because they select users that they ban because
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of political ideology, but worse than this, they act as a publisher.
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When they say this claim is disputed, when they add this to any claim about voting, uh,
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at this point, they are themselves creating the first event of dispute that exists on the
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internet because a claim shows up and within a second Twitter labels it as disputed who disputed
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it, no one except Twitter because a new claim cannot have been disputed before.
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So all of this is, and of course the shadow banning, the selection of the timeline, everything
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that keeps, uh, HGIDs from reaching the timeline.
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This is all the action of a publisher of a selector.
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The spirit of the law is being stepped over and is being exploited.
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And we have a case of defamation within the protection that is this law is supposed to
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protect, but it opens actually a space for the types of defamation that couldn't happen
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For example, if New York times was to say, Oh, you know, this claim about election fraud
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I could sue them because they would be attacking my credibility.
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And if I could show in court, well, it would be extremely complicated, but in principle,
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at least I have a right to say the New York time has defamed me by putting this disputed
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I don't have this possibility against Twitter and we have to examine in depth.
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Why is it that section 230 ultimately protects, ends up protecting forms of defamation that couldn't
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have existed elsewhere, or that could have at least been punished by law if it had happened
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And the answer to this question is that it stems from the otherwise objectionable clause.
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It stems from the fact that when they designed that law, they foresaw that, okay, there are
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a couple of things that platforms may legitimately want out of their systems without it being acts
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It could be to exclude lewd content, violence, porn, that kind of thing.
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But as they listed these potential objections, they also added otherwise objectionable, which
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leaves a complete blank slate for big tech media to decide what it is that we can talk about
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The ideal situation we would be in is we would be in a constructive system where politicians
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are actually interested at making freedom of speech being applied to larger portions of
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And they would get together and say, all right, the otherwise objectionable clause is to be removed
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Because it's not been designed to ban center-right people who say some edgy joke.
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It's been designed for extreme stuff and it should be limited to it.
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Unfortunately, the original writing of the law was not limiting.
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It just said, good faith, otherwise objectionable.
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And that one path through which we could specify these words is not even through legislation,
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But Trump came to this much too much late in his presidency.
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Could have started this in 2016, but he didn't.
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Now, with the little time left of Trump, assuming that he doesn't win his legal case and gives
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us four more years of presidency, we find ourselves with a little time, a little time in which
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And so in this context, since we're not going to get an otherwise objectionable redaction,
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You've once told me that, you know, when you say we claim all of America, we don't want
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You once explained to me that in negotiation, you need to go a little further than what you
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And I think it's saying we want to abolish Section 230 is an extreme measure.
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It won't happen in a way, by the way, because for abolishing Section 230, imagine what you
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You need Nancy Pelosi, you need the Democrats to get together and say, oh, yeah, let's
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let's abolish Section 230, which they will never do.
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Actually, Biden has explicitly told the New York Times that he wants to get rid of Section
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He told that in I can look back at the reasoning, but that was actually said in his interview
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that he gave to them before they endorsed him for president.
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I mean, the default position seems to just be the status quo, you know, misery continuing.
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But let me just address some of these points that you brought up.
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This is not there needs not be any negotiation with them.
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Through net neutrality and through Section 230, they are driving their car on the government
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They are not forging new paths out in the wilderness.
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They are driving on a national highway and the government sets the speed limit.
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So there's no negotiation that needs to take place.
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It's simply I mean, I don't I'm not a lawyer or a constitutional lawyer, so I'll leave this
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But it seems like you could even do this in an executive order.
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Just basically say that if something is legal in public, then it should be legal on your
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So therefore, I mean, for instance, YouTube has a big problem with porn and some really
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And they've handled that by creating like kids YouTube.
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And they've done many things in that, all of which I support, by the way.
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And they are responsible for that, you know, morally, if not legally.
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But I don't know if you remember, but a few years ago, there was a lot of kind of
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creepiness going on with children's videos on YouTube.
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I think this is they absolutely have a moral and likely legal responsibility to do that.
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But those kinds of things are illegal in public.
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Most speech, I mean, even extreme speech that you and I don't take part in.
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I mean, Canada might be different, but in the United States, you could go around using
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Now, at some point, it becomes harassment if you're yelling at someone or threatening them,
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And you can say pretty much 100% of everything I've ever said legally.
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You don't need to negotiate with Jack or Mark or Jack or Zuck.
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And they'll secretly thank you because it will save them money because they can fire a bunch
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of blue haired white people and Indian SH-1B visa holders who are furiously and incoherently
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And I just don't understand why we're even going there.
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I mean, I get it that you want it scorched earth and just fuck them all kind of stuff.
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I remember hearing this from like alt-white personalities and the left.
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So from like Elizabeth Warren to Laura Loomer, you hear this.
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We need to break up big tech so that they stop censoring us.
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I am really grateful for BitChute and I wish them the best luck in the world because without
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I would prefer to be on the largest platform on the planet.
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I don't have some kind of almost, I don't know, desire that we should have all these
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I actually want to be on monopolistic global platforms.
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That is, I don't want to go on 20 platforms and tweet the same thing.
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I want to tweet once on Twitter and it can potentially reach everyone.
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It could reach the President of the United States.
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I want to go on YouTube and take advantage of its monopoly and do that.
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We don't want an internet that is fragmented and disconnected.
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I don't want to have 20 different payment processors and go to a customer or a donor and be like,
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If you're a Canadian, you have American Express, use that one.
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It's just so much monopolies are the best friend of users and dissidents alike.
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I might dislike them personally, but they offer services that are vital to dissidents.
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So why not just make their lives easier with an executive order or perhaps legislation,
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which could get support or could have gotten support when the Republicans were in control
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and might very well get support with Democrats in control.
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You just be like, the left is being centered, censored.
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Black Lives Matter doesn't have a voice anymore.
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You just pitch it in some way and you present it as it's a public, a privately held public
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The internet is, is literally a government operation.
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It is the infrastructure is to a large degree, they're not entirely governmental.
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.
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They are very much interested in seeing, uh, big tech do the dirty job that they cannot
00:27:34.560
Uh, so you won't get, uh, and I'm reading the news item from Biden wanting to abolish section
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230 and they say, yes, he wants to abolish it for the contrary reason to Trump.
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He wants to abolish it because essentially he wants to sue platforms more.
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Uh, that being said, studying this possibility, given that we won't have a reasonable fix of
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the law because there's just too much interest into silencing dissent, both on the side of
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the Antifa that are like, oh my God, white supremacy is harassing me on 24 seven.
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I hear it in my head, even when it's not there.
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Uh, and of course I don't want to see it on the internet.
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You could then sue Twitter for platforming Richard Spencer.
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A Antifa could say, this is a, they're publishing Richard Spencer's content, which has traumatized
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me and I have, I have damages and therefore I'm, but I'm, I'm going to sue Twitter.
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
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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,
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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
00:29:35.580
So in, in the, the, the circumstance where no one will do something reasonable, why not
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agree that we can all do together something unreasonable, which is to, I appreciate your
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honesty on this matter, but didn't Trump have an interest in this because Trump and, and,
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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
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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.
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He had QAnon, he had the conservatives and whatever, but he actually didn't have that
00:30:45.480
That little thing was missing in 2020 and he didn't win.
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And so wouldn't he be, or have been motivated to do this?
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Um, the, the answer is he should have been, but Trump has no insight in the world.
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Trump is surrounded by people who are deceiving him and he's not intelligent enough himself
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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
00:31:20.700
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
00:31:31.860
ice cream cone, and he was like, I don't give a shit.
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And I don't give a shit if my son has dick pics of himself and, uh, just hanging out with
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
00:32:20.760
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
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It shows that you can do a lot with very little.
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Well, I think your tongue might be a little bit in your cheek right there, but I, it's
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.
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Trump gained all of this support in all of these big cities where he's claiming fraud.
00:33:08.400
I mean, he lost, but he did amazing in like New York.
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
00:33:32.660
It's like just the weirdest thing you'd imagine actually happens and you have to react to it.
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
00:34:31.420
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
00:34:44.140
Um, but let's explore this then because we have a disagreement, uh, what happens when
00:34:57.580
You have a central providers like Twitter unable essentially to provide the diversity of opinion
00:35:05.140
So heavy on censorship so much so that now the network effect that, that benefits only them
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
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.
00:36:17.300
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
00:36:44.640
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
00:37:03.340
And if section two 30 was to be abolished, it could be the last nudge needed to fall down
00:37:12.420
I'll actually allow you to have the last word on this.
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.
00:37:28.740
I was personally miffed, but, uh, it's, it's good to hear that it's just about YouTube censorship.
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
00:38:02.360
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
00:38:16.440
Well, then they, they might cut the payments they give to me then.
00:38:57.300
Um, I'm sure it's the same in Montreal as well.
00:39:03.700
I live with Ron from civilization in the very close to the North Pole, but it's, uh, it's
00:39:14.980
I've been a bit naughty this year, but that's usual.
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.
00:39:50.000
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?
00:40:08.560
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
00:40:50.740
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,
00:41:11.180
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.
00:41:23.200
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
00:41:44.780
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.
00:41:57.420
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.
00:42:17.520
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
00:42:40.640
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.
00:43:14.940
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
00:43:28.800
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
00:43:44.600
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,
00:44:12.920
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
00:44:40.120
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
00:44:55.940
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
00:45:13.940
Which party is at least, at least to what they explicitly promise better for, um, Americans
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
00:45:41.860
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.
00:45:58.100
But I think that the, the things you mentioned about Joe Biden, well, I don't want these,
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
00:46:10.840
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.
00:46:23.020
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
00:46:47.400
I, I don't, I mean, yes, it's true that people who support Trump have healthy instincts on
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
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
00:47:41.840
there's something about him that actually is unique that brought all of this nonsense into
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.
00:48:12.120
Now, whether that's his fault, uh, we could debate it, but he does seem to be kind of uniquely
00:48:19.900
Deeply, uh, in Trump and we saw it in the apprentice way before he got into politics, there's something
00:48:28.020
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?
00:48:38.740
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
00:48:55.260
This is a price you're going to have to pay under Biden and that Trump clearly abolished.
00:49:02.880
He basically wanted to look into funding, uh, with regard to critical race theory in the
00:49:10.960
Um, now where is critical race theory coming from?
00:49:20.760
The critical race theory is coming from, uh, public intellectuals is coming from academia and
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
00:49:43.240
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.