Stay Free - Russel Brand - The Truth About Twitter Files, With Matt Taibbi - #044 - Stay Free with Russell Brand

00:00:00.000 I'm going to go ahead and get my phone out of the way. Let's see what's going on. I'm

00:00:07.000 going to go ahead and get my phone out of the way.

00:00:15.000 I'm going to go ahead and get my phone out of the way.

00:01:27.000 Pfizer In this video, you're going to see the student circle.

00:01:48.000 Thanks for joining me on Stay Free with Russell Brown.

00:01:51.000 If you're watching this on YouTube, you can stay here for 10 minutes, but the minute stuff starts getting deep and a little bit uncensored, you're going to have to come over and join us on Rumble because there's certain things we simply can't say on a censored platform like YouTube, much as I love it, and kind and wonderful home, though it has been to us, In today's show, we're asking, is all news propaganda now?

00:02:12.000 Is there any truth in it?

00:02:13.000 Now we are moving to rumble to cultivate a new space where we can speak freely in order to bring people together from

00:02:19.000 across the political spectrum.

00:02:21.000 If you want to join our membership community, there's a link in the chat to show you how you can do that to get

00:02:25.000 even more stuff.

00:02:26.000 I mean, there's a point where the intimacy will become unbearable.

00:02:29.000 In today's show, we're asking, is all news propaganda now?

00:02:33.000 Is there any truth in it?

00:02:34.000 Let me know in the chat, in the comments, what you think.

00:02:37.000 The reason that I'm asking you that question is because when you look at the reporting on Vladimir Putin and the

00:02:43.000 sort of the gleeful ongoing reports of his health crises, you feel like these are the kind of propagandist techniques

00:02:50.000 that belong to yesteryear.

00:02:53.000 He's got a swollen foot, he's only got one ball, he fell down the stairs the other day, his hands are shaking, he's trembling.

00:02:59.000 Yet, in his evident ongoing senility, perhaps not the right word because that's a medical word, but in his, let's call it, trembling inefficiency, Joe Biden appears to be a modern-day equivalent of King George III, a living Freudian slip that unwittingly reveals the power abyss at the core of American democratic politics, which has of course been replaced by corporatism.

00:03:23.000 So how can we trust anything We are reading in the news.

00:03:27.000 Can we even trust the Twitter files?

00:03:29.000 We're going to be talking to Matt Taibbi, one of the journalists who, along with Barry Weiss, broke those Elon Musk stories.

00:03:37.000 We're going to talk to him and ask what's really going on at Twitter.

00:03:40.000 Is Musk using this for his own end?

00:03:42.000 I mean, of course he is.

00:03:43.000 It's not an entirely altruistic project, I suppose.

00:03:47.000 But we want to know, what was it like?

00:03:48.000 What was it like when Elon Musk first approached you?

00:03:51.000 What other revelations are there going to be?

00:03:54.000 What are the real big stories?

00:03:55.000 Is the Hunter Biden laptop kicking Donald Trump off?

00:03:58.000 Are they the main things?

00:04:00.000 Yeah, the kind of repressing of more right-wing journalists.

00:04:03.000 Shallow banning.

00:04:04.000 Hit Rumble if you're watching us on Rumble, and if you're watching us on YouTube, join us over on Rumble now.

00:04:10.000 We've got some fantastic guests coming up over the course of the week.

00:04:12.000 Let's focus on today's show, and in particular, the reporting on Putin's health.

00:04:16.000 Putin is red-faced and swaying and slurring.

00:04:20.000 He's got a claw-like grip while he's holding onto a champagne glass.

00:04:24.000 It sounds like a sort of a monstrous spectacle, the sort of thing that if you were witnessing it with your own eyes, you'd struggle to stifle the vomit.

00:04:24.000 Look at that.

00:04:31.000 But let's look at what actually What's the claw bit?

00:04:36.000 for a lovely grip.

00:04:38.000 He's got the fingers of a pianist, hasn't he?

00:04:46.000 Look at the way he's holding them.

00:04:47.000 Not like Prince Charles's great big sausage fists clutching onto a glass.

00:04:52.000 What's the claw bit?

00:04:54.000 Does it look like a claw?

00:04:55.000 I mean, do all hands look like a claw?

00:04:58.000 That's more of a modality rather than an essence.

00:05:02.000 I think what the implication is, is that he's involuntarily clutching at that champagne flute like a man possessed.

00:05:10.000 Really, it looks relatively composed, and I suppose that the reason we're asking the question about is all news relayed in a propagandist way is because you find yourself suddenly at odds with an entire culture, not because you support Russia, because obviously Russian actions in Ukraine are egregious, the suffering of Ukrainian people is appalling, but because you're invited to blindly forget events of just months ago.

00:05:37.000 We know that because of the pandemic and the way that's been reported on and what's been learned since then.

00:05:42.000 And the way that we're told, the way that the story of the Ukraine-Russia conflict is told.

00:05:48.000 So it's mostly the media's role we're focusing on and the way that they extract any possible NATO action or American military or resource-based interests.

00:05:58.000 For me, for the news to make sense and for me to feel sort of at ease and like I could trust the source, they would just say, listen, we know that NATO has reneged on some of the pacts that were made with Gorbachev in 1990.

00:06:11.000 It's clear that there was electoral meddling in 2014.

00:06:16.000 And the American pro-democratic think tanks were operating in Ukraine to meddle in democracy.

00:06:22.000 None of this means that Russia are great or that Putin's a fantastic sort of Russian Father Christmas character.

00:06:29.000 It just means that if you do not gain access to the necessary nuance, it invites you to contemplate what the agenda is.

00:06:38.000 Why are you not being trusted with complexity?

00:06:40.000 Why is that?

00:06:42.000 Let's have a look, we've got some other, what is it?

00:06:44.000 He's cancelled a press conference, is it?

00:06:45.000 He's pooed himself, he's fallen downstairs and pooed himself.

00:06:48.000 What else is there about Putin?

00:06:49.000 Is there any more information?

00:06:51.000 He's running scared, he's battling cancer.

00:06:55.000 Actually, normally when people are reported on that are overcoming those sort of health difficulties, they're lauded as heroes, aren't they?

00:07:02.000 It's weird, isn't it?

00:07:05.000 allow the war to continue in a way because if you just keep portraying this

00:07:09.000 as Putin he's gonna die pretty soon this will be over you don't have to say why

00:07:14.000 are we still doing this and spending all this money on weapons I also think it's 0.88

00:07:18.000 a more vivid image to constantly focus your attention on a demonic tyrant who's

00:07:24.000 sick and ill of body whose own biochemistry is telling you of the

00:07:29.000 malady at his core you don't have to think about the complexity of the

00:07:32.000 funding of the war the profits that are being made by Lockheed Martin and

00:07:36.000 Raytheon the reductivism in the reporting and I suppose that's sort of 0.99

00:07:41.000 what I mostly resent is being sort of spoken to like we're idiots I mean Joe 1.00

00:07:45.000 Biden's meeting up with Macron and like look you can't on one hand I suppose 0.99

00:07:51.000 Lord Putin which I would you know obviously never do and then needlessly

00:07:56.000 demonize Joe Biden just that How is it that we have moved to the point where only avowed right-wing outlets will point out the plain absurdity of a moment like this?

00:08:08.000 Have a look.

00:08:14.000 That first bit, what's that he's doing?

00:08:16.000 He's checking what's going on, isn't he? 0.98

00:08:17.000 Like, who the hell are you? 0.96

00:08:21.000 What is that? 0.98

00:08:22.000 I hope that... I don't watch late night talk shows anymore, not because I don't like those people that do them, because I know some of those people and they're very nice, but like...

00:08:29.000 I feel like when Trump was doing his off-key weird stuff, they were all over it night after night.

00:08:33.000 In fact, they're still talking about his tax affairs and all of those things, which, if true, are significant in some way.

00:08:39.000 But why would you not equally spread your ire on any figure who is powerful that's come up through the CIA, that's clearly a representative of economic interests?

00:08:49.000 Why are we pretending that there's this incredible distinction, that this is anything other than an absurd spectacle akin This is what I'm offering you.

00:08:57.000 Let me know what you think about this historical analysis.

00:09:00.000 Like when King George III, who was, of course, a de facto tyrant and king of the colonies, and therefore that's the very king that you guys overthrew, in my view, mistakenly.

00:09:09.000 When he went senile, people tried to keep it down and repress it.

00:09:13.000 But his erosion, his mental decline, symbolized the arrival of the great democracies,

00:09:19.000 and perhaps democracy in its modern form, altogether.

00:09:23.000 I.e., the French Revolution happened, the American Revolution happened,

00:09:26.000 and from then, there was a different kind of democracy.

00:09:28.000 Now, some of you will argue that deep state power was around even then, that there tendrils of true authority

00:09:35.000 lay in wait, continually controlling power.

00:09:38.000 But for me, I wonder if this is comparable.

00:09:41.000 I wonder if he might be regarded, as I said before, as a kind of human Freudian slip, letting us know what the true state of American democratic power really is.

00:09:50.000 One of erosion.

00:09:51.000 He's falling apart and new systems will have to be born.

00:09:55.000 Perhaps we can snatch something from the ashes, but first... One thing is clear, that none of these leaders know what to do with their hands.

00:10:01.000 I mean, whether it's Putin, Biden or Macron, no one's understood how to do a proper hand.

00:10:06.000 What you should be doing Hands, what do you do with your hands?

00:10:10.000 It's very, that's a good acting skill.

00:10:12.000 You can do something like that.

00:10:13.000 That's good.

00:10:14.000 Now, standing up hands is always a challenge.

00:10:17.000 Like, you know, once you start standing, yeah, your hands are under a whole lot more pressure.

00:10:21.000 They're under more pressure now.

00:10:22.000 Look at it.

00:10:23.000 I just, like, you can just let your hands loose.

00:10:26.000 Let them swing low.

00:10:27.000 Let them swing lower.

00:10:28.000 Like, if I was doing, like, if I'm Macron, this is, or Biden.

00:10:31.000 Yeah.

00:10:32.000 Well, like, Macron's being too serious.

00:10:34.000 That's too, he's too taut.

00:10:36.000 And Biden's looking like he wants a lollipop from Macron, isn't he?

00:10:42.000 Yeah.

00:10:43.000 Do my hands have a problem right now?

00:10:44.000 No, they're all right.

00:10:45.000 But now I'm focusing on them.

00:10:46.000 Maybe his hands are weird.

00:10:49.000 They're saucy little things, aren't they? 0.89

00:10:51.000 They're your little sidekicks, those guys.

00:10:52.000 Macron is strange.

00:10:54.000 He's focused too much on how his hands look.

00:10:56.000 He's being too serious.

00:10:57.000 He's trying to pinch them into little lobster paws.

00:11:00.000 And yeah, Biden, he's knackering up nicely.

00:11:03.000 But, um, let's see how this sort of unfolds ultimately.

00:11:05.000 That's not normal interactions!

00:11:14.000 Alex Overton in the chat said that he's got Playmobil hands.

00:11:19.000 Like those toys that are like that.

00:11:21.000 That's really good, Alex.

00:11:22.000 OK, listen, if you're watching this on YouTube, we're going to cut the stream now and we'll only be on Rumble.

00:11:27.000 Remember, Matt Taibbi is coming up in a minute.

00:11:28.000 We're going to ask him proper questions.

00:11:30.000 What's your relationship with Elon Musk?

00:11:31.000 Like, are you concerned that you're pursuing Elon Musk's agenda?

00:11:34.000 What kind of criticism and attacks have you received since making these revelations?

00:11:39.000 And our video, Here's the News Now, Here's the Effing News, is a brilliant look at Elon Musk and what his agenda might be with Twitter and beyond Twitter, and whether or not he ought to be regarded as different from any other oligarch.

00:11:50.000 We're going to cut the stream now, jump right over to Rumble, where we can speak in an uncensored way.

00:11:54.000 I'm going to start swearing.

00:11:55.000 You want to see what I'm going to be doing with my hands in a few seconds.

00:11:59.000 Yeah, that's not how normal human beings behave, is it Gary?

00:12:01.000 No, it isn't, no.

00:12:02.000 Although I do know about feeling more self-conscious when suddenly when you're on camera.

00:12:07.000 I mean, right now, for example.

00:12:08.000 What, do you feel like you might twitch or something?

00:12:10.000 Yeah, absolutely.

00:12:12.000 Do something unusual with your mouth.

00:12:12.000 I do sometimes.

00:12:14.000 Yeah.

00:12:14.000 Or do a big unusual swallow.

00:12:16.000 The main thing that, one of the reasons we wanted to look at propaganda is because Netflix have made a show where the great David Letterman is interviewing the broadly viewed as heroic Vladimir Zelensky.

00:12:29.000 Now, I couldn't be more enthused by the rise of a comedian to leadership of a country.

00:12:35.000 The more I think about it, the more I think it would be a lot of pressure to run a country.

00:12:38.000 And I actually find it quite hard to just look after my own cats.

00:12:43.000 I struggle with Vladimir Zelensky's old job of being a comedian.

00:12:49.000 But when you look at the trailer that Netflix have released for the interview with Lehman, it makes you wonder if they have lost the art of critical thinking.

00:12:59.000 And I suppose not every single conversation can cover every single topic.

00:13:04.000 But when you're talking about something as potentially devastating as a proxy war between the United States and Russia, although of course people stringently deny that's what it is in spite of the billions of pounds of funding, the direct advice, the meddling in the diplomacy, It feels like that you need a little nuance.

00:13:20.000 You need to know what the history of that conflict is.

00:13:22.000 You need to know what sort of interests are benefiting.

00:13:24.000 You need to know the truth.

00:13:26.000 You certainly don't want it reduced to a sort of simple puff piece.

00:13:30.000 And note the fact that the interview itself takes place in a subterranean space, I think in a train station in Ukraine, with the obvious implication that it's not safe to do it above ground.

00:13:39.000 But do you imagine for a moment that Dave Letterman's Sleeping under the ground?

00:13:43.000 Do you imagine that Zelensky is living under the ground?

00:13:48.000 I mean, he might be in a bunker, I don't know.

00:13:49.000 But for me, I would argue that it's a propagandist move to present the show in the manner that they have done.

00:13:56.000 Unless, of course, they do ask what happened in the 2014 elections?

00:14:00.000 What is the nature of the funding that you're getting?

00:14:02.000 What are the energy interests?

00:14:04.000 What's the nature of some of the forces within the Ukrainian army and their affiliations with ideologies that are not celebrated elsewhere.

00:14:12.000 I'm talking in particular of fascism and Nazism. 0.53

00:14:14.000 I'm not saying that Zelensky is anything other than a hero.

00:14:17.000 I'm just saying that there ought be an obligation to present reporting that is not dipped in saccharine and reductive and overly simplified. 0.99

00:14:25.000 I think the way that it is presented sort of suggests that they think we're idiots and that we're being sort of corralled into sort of neurological paddocks fit only for goons and children. 0.96

00:14:37.000 Yeah, it reduces the war to, like, heroes. 0.99

00:14:41.000 The American heroes, Ukrainian heroes, of which we're not denying that they are, and an evil dictator with claw hands. 1.00

00:14:49.000 Look at him, the claw-handed bastard. 0.99

00:14:51.000 That's not even his real head. 1.00

00:14:52.000 Although, actually thinking about it, Putin does look a bit like Darth Vader when he takes his mask off.

00:14:57.000 In fact, I'd like to see a side-by-side comparison of that after this video.

00:15:01.000 Let's have a little look at the Netflix trailer, why not?

00:15:05.000 When we were planning this trip, I wasn't sure what to expect.

00:15:08.000 It had been months since Russian troops were driven out of the city, but just a week ago, Russia launched missiles and drones into Ukraine, including several that hit Kiev.

00:15:19.000 Welcome to Ukraine. 0.93

00:15:20.000 Thank you.

00:15:21.000 A conversation is taking place in the safest part of the city, 300 feet below ground, on an active subway platform.

00:15:30.000 Ladies and gentlemen, your president, Vladimir Zelensky.

00:15:37.000 Yeah, what?

00:15:39.000 We're talking, are we?

00:15:40.000 What did you want to say?

00:15:40.000 Yeah, yeah, what do you think?

00:15:41.000 I see you, I sort of watched something come across your face there, a flicker.

00:15:45.000 No, I just, you were talking earlier about the kind of complexities that are not revealed by this kind of, I guess what you could call propaganda.

00:15:51.000 know we talked about 2008 this is when we had Jeffrey Sachs on he was talking

00:15:55.000 about this that this goes back this doesn't go back to a few months ago that

00:15:59.000 this war goes back to say 2008 when you know Bush talked about wanting to expand

00:16:04.000 NATO into Ukraine and Georgia and at that point like Putin was like don't do

00:16:08.000 that or I'll annex Crimea and that's what he did and this was like what

00:16:12.000 kicked this all off according to Jeffrey Sachs also lots of you know other people

00:16:16.000 have spoken about the same thing There was this, we were talking about it earlier, this was in FAIR that they reported about the backdrop to the 2014 coup and the annexation that apparently cannot be understood without looking at the US strategy to open Ukrainian markets to foreign investors and give control of its economy to giant multinational corporations.

00:16:36.000 And I suppose what feels eerily true about those kind of statements is it lines up pretty neatly with United States actions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea, the famous and notorious meddling in Latin American politics, the coups that have been staged.

00:16:56.000 And why can't you have a conversation like this without automatically being dubbed a kind of, I don't know, Pro-Putin.

00:17:06.000 Apologies, I'm not pro-Putin person.

00:17:09.000 Like, when I've seen the list of celebrities that have been out to Ukraine, firstly I was jealous because I've not been invited.

00:17:17.000 No, like first I thought, oh no, does that mean that I'm sort of at odds With those people who I sort of like and kind of respect and admire, that if you ask these kind of questions, you're excluded from the mainstream.

00:17:28.000 And then I recall that during the pandemic, that if you were like, hey, this science that we're meant to be following, are all the results in?

00:17:34.000 Are we sure that they're conducting the correct clinical trials?

00:17:37.000 Have they even ever tested for transmission at a clinical level?

00:17:42.000 No, they haven't.

00:17:43.000 And we never said we did.

00:17:44.000 Bloody hell, what was all that?

00:17:45.000 Stop the spread. 1.00

00:17:46.000 It's irresponsible to go and see old people. 1.00

00:17:49.000 Once you're aware that narratives shift, there's an obligation to remain alert and awake.

00:17:53.000 And if that in itself becomes an act for which you are condemned, I think that's a big problem.

00:18:01.000 Don't you, Gareth?

00:18:02.000 The critical thinking is being outlawed.

00:18:04.000 They want you to sort of submit.

00:18:06.000 I'm not suggesting that we're actually right.

00:18:08.000 That's why I want to talk to people like Matt Taibbi, journalists who I can trust, and we talked to Chris Hedges and we bring people on here to educate and illuminate like proper investigative journalists, academics, experts.

00:18:20.000 Jeffrey Sachs to me when we spoke to him and he gave us an alternative narrative that began with NATO impingement after the dissolving of the Warsaw Pact and Gorbachev's willingness to end the Cold War as long as NATO did not impede

00:18:33.000 by one inch on Russian territory.

00:18:36.000 Like that when you hear that stuff you know what I mean? Oh Jeffrey Sachs is just saying this he's

00:18:39.000 probably got a deal with some Ukrainian energy company.

00:18:42.000 Hunter Biden's got a deal with Ukrainian energy companies. Oh Jesus! But listen before we go even

00:18:46.000 one iota deeper let's have a look at Putin next to Darth Vader. Ah. And decide for yourself who's

00:18:53.000 truly evil.

00:18:55.000 I will say, when you first mentioned it, I thought, no.

00:18:57.000 But it's true, isn't it?

00:18:58.000 It's actually fair enough.

00:18:58.000 It's pretty good.

00:19:00.000 I didn't like it when they took his mask off.

00:19:03.000 It was embarrassing.

00:19:03.000 They shouldn't have done that to him.

00:19:04.000 I think there'll be a matter of days before they say, Putin unable to breathe without oral device.

00:19:09.000 Putin has taken to wearing a mask.

00:19:11.000 Putin claims.

00:19:12.000 Putin's taken up the harmonica.

00:19:16.000 We must wear it at all times, he says.

00:19:18.000 In his dying days.

00:19:20.000 I'm a one-man band.

00:19:21.000 Vows to learn tunes.

00:19:24.000 Back in the USSR. 0.93

00:19:25.000 That's my opener.

00:19:27.000 I'm rocking the Kremlin.

00:19:28.000 Because the idea that you have to strap the harmonica to your head.

00:19:31.000 Yeah.

00:19:32.000 That's an incredible obligation that the one-man band has taken on. 0.63

00:19:36.000 Yeah, it looks a little silly, doesn't it?

00:19:38.000 I wouldn't buy that.

00:19:39.000 I don't even like those braces that go outside your head.

00:19:41.000 No, not at all.

00:19:42.000 People wear those anymore.

00:19:44.000 I think they're trying to stamp him out.

00:19:46.000 Now look, even outside of the conditions that led to the Ukraine-Russia conflict regarding NATO involvement, outside of that, here's a few little stats that would be good if they were included in that Netflix show.

00:20:01.000 America recently gave Ukraine the green light to launch drone strikes deep inside Russia.

00:20:05.000 The Biden administration plans to sell Ukraine four MQ-1C Grey Eagle drones that can be armed with Hellfire missiles for battlefield use against Russia.

00:20:12.000 Now, that sort of sounds a little like a proxy war.

00:20:15.000 The US has approved more than $54 billion of economic and military aid to Ukraine since February.

00:20:19.000 Of course, that's very public and often lauded as support for Ukraine, which, you know, when you consider this situation from the perspective of suffering people in Kiev, it's a Seems like a good move, of course, but like where's that money ending up?

00:20:32.000 Some of the largest weapons companies in the world, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, openly tell their investors that tensions between the countries are good for business.

00:20:38.000 It's something that they can use in their projections for the next quarter.

00:20:41.000 The CBS News report suggests that only around 30% of the weapons sent by the West actually make it to the front lines.

00:20:46.000 So again, we're not saying that there is a A counterposition to the mainstream vanilla narrative that is necessarily 100% correct.

00:20:56.000 What we're inviting you to consider is a degree of complexity in stories such as this, and perhaps even, tell me in the chat, tell me in the comments, is it irresponsible to report and make hagiographic shows like Netflix, eulogizing about the greatness and bravery, no doubt bravery of Zelensky, without Including the complexity and advantages afforded to corporate interests as a result of this conflict.

00:21:22.000 Those are just a few of the things I'd like you to consider.

00:21:24.000 But, before we get to Matt Taibbi, we have taken our own deeper dive into the Twitter files we've had.

00:21:32.000 I mean, you know me, I'm one of the best investigative journalists that there are.

00:21:36.000 Probably, if not the best, but it's one of the things we'll be asking.

00:21:38.000 Don't embarrass Matt later, will you?

00:21:40.000 I'll say, check your facts, Matt.

00:21:40.000 I will embarrass him.

00:21:43.000 He'll be in front of that drum kit that he's always in front of, won't he?

00:21:45.000 Yeah, he will.

00:21:46.000 Matt Tybee from his drum kit.

00:21:49.000 He'll be there.

00:21:50.000 But before we get into that, let's have a look at the revelations of Twitter files and in particular what Elon Musk's agenda might be.

00:21:58.000 Oh, here's the effing news.

00:21:58.000 Here's the news.

00:22:00.000 Thank you for abusing Foxy.

00:22:02.000 Here's the news. 1.00

00:22:03.000 No, here's the fucking news! 0.99

00:22:06.000 The Twitter files are- Are these the unprecedented revelations of a true enemy of the state? 0.99

00:22:13.000 Or is Twitter the plaything of another billionaire with deep ties to the corporate world and the state itself?

00:22:21.000 Or, perhaps even more startling than that, could he be the new Klaus Schwab?

00:22:25.000 Oh, I do not like to pry.

00:22:29.000 Aren't you confused about Elon Musk?

00:22:31.000 Doesn't he sometimes seem like a brilliant maverick, orator, novel thinker, innovator, strange enemy of the state interest, free speech advocate?

00:22:40.000 But then you find out that Tesla, of course, have massive contracts with the government and SpaceX have big contracts with the government.

00:22:46.000 So let's have a look at these Twitter file revelations which doubtlessly demonstrate the degree of corruption to which Twitter and presumably other social media outfits were willing to support, in this case, Democratic party narratives with the over obvious suppression of the Hunter Biden story which, you know, is now spoken about on mainstream media.

00:23:06.000 But at the time, if you mentioned that, you know, people openly called Glenn Greenwald a right-wing fascist.

00:23:10.000 Glenn Greenwald, the guy who broke the Snowden story, he was married to a man, right-wing fascist!

00:23:15.000 Now, it's just on normal news.

00:23:17.000 So whatever they're saying about what we're saying now, in 80 months' time, that will be normal news.

00:23:22.000 When it's too late, when the election's been won by their preferred candidate, when their objectives have been met, when their agenda's been pursued, let's see how the mainstream media reports these Twitterphile revelations, and we're going to take this deep.

00:23:36.000 We're going to cover the complexity of Elon Musk's connections without needlessly condemning him or fawning over him and celebrating him.

00:23:43.000 In the run-up to the 2020 election, the New York Post ran a story accusing Hunter Biden of using his father's position for his own business dealings.

00:23:52.000 It also documented the explosive and sexually explicit contents of Hunter Biden's laptop.

00:24:00.000 They were not thought to have been the result of hacking.

00:24:08.000 They had to find a way to repress the story, because ultimately there are affiliations within Twitter, or there were at that time, that were aligned with it.

00:24:16.000 I hope you know that we are not a pro-Republican organisation, that we wouldn't call ourselves right-wing.

00:24:22.000 In fact, I think our raison d'etre is to get beyond those categories, because I don't think there's a future for ordinary people. 0.63

00:24:28.000 With that level of divisiveness.

00:24:30.000 But you cannot support that level of censorship and still claim to be in support of democracy and freedom.

00:24:37.000 That time is over.

00:24:38.000 So on that basis, Elon Musk is doing a good thing at Twitter.

00:24:41.000 But is it that unique?

00:24:43.000 And is it that distinct?

00:24:44.000 Is his objective the support of free speech, as he claims?

00:24:47.000 Can we take him at his word?

00:24:48.000 Or does the recent banning of Kanye show, whether you think that was right or wrong, that nothing that dramatic has really changed?

00:24:54.000 Twitter banned Kanye before for antisemitism, Twitter banned Kanye now for antisemitism.

00:24:58.000 My personal stance on antisemitism is you shouldn't be racist.

00:25:01.000 It's something the company's founder now accepts was an error.

00:25:05.000 We recognize it as a mistake that we made.

00:25:08.000 If Twitter is doing one team's bidding before an election, shutting down dissenting voices on a pivotal election, that is the very definition of election interference.

00:25:19.000 On this point, I'd have to say that I 100% agree with Elon Musk, as we stated at the time of the Hunter Biden revelations, when we were at some risk for reporting on it.

00:25:30.000 So with regard to this issue, we agree with Elon Musk.

00:25:33.000 Frankly, Twitter was acting like an arm of the Democratic National Committee.

00:25:38.000 The world's richest man also started to release internal Twitter files, something the White House said was not healthy.

00:25:47.000 We see this as an interesting or a coincidence, if I may, that he would so haphazardly, Twitter would so haphazardly push this distraction that is full of old news.

00:26:04.000 We know that they tinkered with, prohibited, controlled that information because they knew it would affect the outcome of an election.

00:26:14.000 We know that there are other things like that that it's still not safe to talk about.

00:26:18.000 We don't have a credible government.

00:26:20.000 We know that Joe Biden made numerous pledges throughout his election campaign, whether it's around Saudi Arabia, supporting the rights of workers, not exacerbating a nuclear conflict, that he's reneged on.

00:26:31.000 Because there is so little trust in public life, a figure like Elon Musk, even as the world's richest man, is a breath of fresh air.

00:26:39.000 When the Hunter Biden stories, outlandish and lurid as they were, emerged just weeks ahead of the 2020 poll, social networks decided they were probably false or the result of hacking, and so took decisive action.

00:26:48.000 on Twitter have meaningful ramifications for ordinary people.

00:26:51.000 We also have to be open-minded about other allegations.

00:27:10.000 The nature of Hunter Biden's relationship with Ukrainian energy companies, Chinese energy companies, Joe Biden's impact on those relationships, the degree of his influence and involvement.

00:27:19.000 We can't just dismiss it as hacking and conspiracy theory, can we?

00:27:23.000 This time, do we always do that?

00:27:25.000 It's hacking and conspiracy theory till it's irrelevant, then you can put it on the mainstream news as all, oh well, never mind, everyone was trying their best.

00:27:32.000 The second installment of the much-hyped Twitterphiles debuted on Thursday night with conservative writer Barry Weiss outlining in a Twitter thread what she described as the shadow banning of prominent conservatives including Charlie Kirk, Dan Bognino and Libs of TikTok.

00:27:45.000 The founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, argued that the public would be better served by a more

00:27:49.000 transparent approach that cuts out the middlemen.

00:27:52.000 If the goal is transparency to build trust, asked Musk on Twitter yesterday,

00:27:55.000 why not just release everything without filter and let people judge for themselves?

00:27:59.000 Presumably because Elon Musk is, if nothing else, a brilliant entrepreneur and media manipulator,

00:28:05.000 and as CEO of Twitter, he does have an obligation to make Twitter relevant again.

00:28:09.000 Let's make Twitter relevant again.

00:28:11.000 So him making this story play out over time using a very credible journalist like Matt Taibbi and Barry Weiss,

00:28:17.000 people who get attacked and criticized a lot, who have been guests on our show before,

00:28:20.000 who I happen to think are brilliant investigative journalists, is comparable to what he did at SpaceX.

00:28:24.000 You want to make a rocket ship company?

00:28:26.000 Go find the best rocket engineers.

00:28:28.000 I mean, it's not rocket science.

00:28:29.000 Actually, it was rocket science, but this time it's not.

00:28:31.000 Critics of Tabi included MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan who wrote, But of course the left have to deal with similar accusations when defending the repression of the Hunter Biden laptop story and numerous other narratives that ultimately play into the hands of establishment liberals like the current Democrat party who Ultimately operate at the behest of corporate interests and are not serving the people that they were elected to vote and not fulfilling the promises and pledges they were elected on.

00:29:05.000 Tybee, now labeled a former voice of the left, came to prominence right in about the 2008 crash.

00:29:10.000 He was skeptical of claims of collusion between Russia and Trump but literally wrote a book about Trump called Insane Clown President.

00:29:16.000 So he was not a pro-Trump figure, he's just interested in investigative journalism.

00:29:21.000 It's got to the point now where the narrative has shifted.

00:29:23.000 The imposition of censorship has become so rigid and immersive that if you're just investigative and open-minded and not blinkered and blind you are a de facto right-wing conspiracy theorist.

00:29:34.000 Although in 18 months you'll just have been telling the truth but you'll be talking about something else then and that will be right-wing conspiracy.

00:29:39.000 So you can't really ever get out of it unless you're willing to wear an outrageous coat.

00:29:43.000 So is Elon Musk right about government censorship and collusion?

00:29:46.000 The FBI warned Twitter during weekly meetings before the 2020 election to expect hack and leak operations by state actors involving Hunter Biden.

00:29:54.000 So they started to prime them and let them know, hey, when you hear about this, that's the old hack and leak.

00:29:58.000 You sure it's not that Hunter Biden's got all sorts of shady business deals?

00:30:01.000 Do you not remember seeing him on the news going, I don't need to tell you about my business deals.

00:30:04.000 I don't need to open up my kimono.

00:30:06.000 I'll show you what's going on downstairs.

00:30:07.000 One thing that I don't have to do is sit here and open my kimono.

00:30:10.000 It's clear now that those revelations were true and there's probably more information in them that's relevant to their credibility of Joe Biden as a president and the lack of transparency around his business dealings and his connection to his family and these various energy companies.

00:30:24.000 Former Twitter legal policy and trust and safety lead Vijaya Gad played a key role in censoring the Hunter Biden story in October 2020.

00:30:31.000 After Biden became president, his administration appointed her to an advisory role on a committee that helped shape the Department of Homeland Security's misinformation and disinformation work that same year. 0.65

00:30:40.000 The revolving door keeps spinning, these connections are still evident, and the idea that we are spoon-fed this stuff and don't question what's going into our mouth becomes increasingly ridiculous.

00:30:51.000 Alan McLeod revealed that Twitter hired a host of former FBI agents to work in the fields of security, trust, safety, and content.

00:30:57.000 So, deep state agencies had people in social media that were working in areas that meant they would explicitly be directing censorship, controlling content output, and having an influence on how we perceive reality.

00:31:10.000 While talking about this and celebrating Elon Musk's work for the freedom of speech, let's have a look at some of his other relationships to give us just some context for how we can look at him as a cultural figure more broadly.

00:31:20.000 Tesla and SpaceX have received more than $7 billion in government contracts alone, and billions more in tax breaks, loans, and other subsidies in recent years.

00:31:27.000 Tesla has sold at least $6 billion worth of government-backed electric vehicle credits.

00:31:31.000 These sales of twice in recent years made the difference between the company posting a profit instead of a loss.

00:31:36.000 So ultimately Tesla and SpaceX need their relationships with the government.

00:31:39.000 Now that doesn't necessarily mean that Elon Musk is in the pocket of the government.

00:31:44.000 It just means that perhaps business operations at that level require a degree of compliance

00:31:47.000 around taxation issues and funding issues.

00:31:50.000 SpaceX has a $300 million contract with the US Air Force and a $5 billion deal with NASA.

00:31:54.000 Emmanuel Macron asked Musk to sign up for Children Online Protection Laboratory, an

00:31:59.000 initiative aiming to shield minors from harmful content on the internet, a wide-reaching legal

00:32:04.000 tool of state power and censorship.

00:32:06.000 Macron tweeted, Will the bird protect our children?

00:32:09.000 The billionaire responded in affirmative to Macron's question by writing,

00:32:12.000 Absolument, which I believe is French. 1.00

00:32:14.000 Last week, Musk thanked Apple CEO Tim Cook for taking him around Apple's headquarters

00:32:18.000 and revealed that Apple will not be removing Twitter from its Apple Store.

00:32:22.000 So ultimately, there are relationships at the top level of commerce and government which

00:32:26.000 perhaps are required to operate in the space that Elon Musk does.

00:32:31.000 that he is not a valid opponent of establishment narratives, but it means that he has to operate, I suppose, in those

00:32:37.000 spaces.

00:32:38.000 Let me know in the chat, let me know in the comments whether you think that's a conflict of interest

00:32:41.000 or prevents him being the maverick that many people see him as.

00:32:43.000 Let me know what you think.

00:32:44.000 In addition to that, there are Elon Musk's views around technological utopianism and transhumanism, e.g.

00:32:50.000 Elon Musk said on Wednesday that he expects a brain chip developed by his health tech company Neuralink to begin human trials in the next six months.

00:32:57.000 In addition to forecasting clinical trials, Musk said he plans to get one of the chips himself.

00:33:01.000 This, as the company is under federal investigation after it was reported around 1,500 animals died in the last four years during Now, of course, many people say that Neuralink and much of this technology is used to help people that are paralyzed or blind, ultimately impeded in some way.

00:33:16.000 Whether or not you think it's a good thing or whether you're concerned about the sort of cyborg dimension being so rapidly approached, let me tell you there's an unusual ally for Elon Musk in this world.

00:33:26.000 It's our old friend, Klaus Schwab.

00:33:28.000 Can you imagine that in ten years when we are sitting here we have an implant in our brains and I can immediately feel because you all will have implants.

00:33:41.000 You'll have them and you'll be happy.

00:33:43.000 And we measure your brain waves.

00:33:45.000 What you're doing is your brain waves.

00:33:48.000 You will have implants and you'll be happy.

00:33:50.000 And I can immediately tell you how the people react, or I can feel how the people react to your answers.

00:33:59.000 Is it imaginable?

00:34:01.000 So while Elon Musk is a radical opponent of certain Democratic National Party interests, elsewhere his interests seem to be in alignment with globalist goals like the one just cited there.

00:34:12.000 That doesn't Let me know what you think in the comments, let me know what you think in the chat.

00:34:15.000 person, it just shows that within that space there is alignment financially and

00:34:21.000 ideologically in ways that might be surprising and these are certainly the

00:34:24.000 things we would love to discuss with Elon Musk. Is Elon Musk a radical maverick

00:34:29.000 or is he part of the establishment? Possibly he is both.

00:34:32.000 Perhaps it's necessary to be both to operate in the spheres he operates

00:34:35.000 in. Let me know what you think in the comments, let me know what you think in

00:34:38.000 the chat, see you in a moment. Hey have you noticed that big tech companies are

00:34:42.000 now masquerading as privacy companies.

00:34:45.000 Just fix your privacy settings, turn off app tracking and you're all good.

00:34:49.000 Are we supposed to suddenly believe that the big bad tech wolf has now turned into a sweet grandma?

00:34:56.000 Oh no, I wouldn't try.

00:34:58.000 Big Tech feeds on your information.

00:35:00.000 They can't stop themselves looking at what you do online. 0.99

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00:35:22.000 Visit expressvpn.com forward slash brand to get an extra three months on a one-year package.

00:35:28.000 That's expressvpn.com forward slash brand. 0.99

00:35:33.000 That is how I keep the big bad tech wolf from my door, you saucy bastard. 0.99

00:35:41.000 I'm gonna put one of those on my phone right now. 0.97

00:35:43.000 I think it makes us look good if you do it using our codes, you know, it'll be good for us.

00:35:48.000 So, yeah, thanks.

00:35:49.000 I'm doing my VPN promotion.

00:35:51.000 You do it if you can.

00:35:52.000 I don't know, I look brown there.

00:35:53.000 Very brown.

00:35:54.000 Very brown, very brown.

00:35:55.000 But let's not spend all our time talking about our brown.

00:35:58.000 No, no, more about the colours.

00:36:01.000 But what shade was it?

00:36:03.000 Was it beige?

00:36:03.000 Was it caramel?

00:36:04.000 Listen, we're talking about the nature of propaganda and the nature of truth and I suppose that leads us to real investigative journalism and as sure as day follows night.

00:36:14.000 You can't mention investigative journalism without perhaps uttering the names that rhyme with baby and maybe.

00:36:22.000 Yes, it's Matt Taby.

00:36:23.000 Matt, thanks for joining us.

00:36:25.000 It's so lovely to see you.

00:36:27.000 Thanks for having me on, Russell.

00:36:30.000 We're angry with you.

00:36:31.000 We're angry and we're jealous that you've been making all these revelations and you've been carrying on.

00:36:36.000 Can you tell me firstly how it unfolded, your relationship with Elon Musk and how he told you that he wanted you to release these files?

00:36:46.000 Well, that part of it's complicated because I agreed from the start to a general attribution, which is sources at Twitter.

00:36:56.000 So the kind of the story of how I got the story, I gotta just leave it at that.

00:37:00.000 But I can tell you about interactions with Elon Musk.

00:37:05.000 You know, he's, it's funny, I've had a lot of, I've probably done Tens of thousands of interviews.

00:37:13.000 I mean thousands, at least, of interviews in my life.

00:37:16.000 And there's always this uncomfortable moment when you ask to turn on the tape recorder or the recorder because the person's always afraid that you're gonna, you know, catch them. 0.96

00:37:28.000 This is the first time that I looked in somebody's eyes and I could tell they legitimately just did not give a fuck at all. 0.92

00:37:37.000 Whether or not I was recording, like what I was gonna write. 0.53

00:37:40.000 And I was explicitly told I could write anything I wanted, and we haven't seen anything.

00:37:46.000 or run into anything that suggests otherwise.

00:37:50.000 So.

00:37:50.000 He's a pretty unique individual with obviously like all comparable outlets spent a lot of time

00:37:56.000 considering Elon Musk contemplating his unique cultural space.

00:38:02.000 The fact that he's part Donald Trump, part Willy Wonka, part Richard Branson, part Steve Jobs, part Disruptor.

00:38:10.000 And I know that part of the, oh gosh, I'm gonna gratify them by using the word backlash,

00:38:16.000 but you have, subsequent to making these revelations, you've been accused of being something of a kind of,

00:38:22.000 I don't know, left-wing apostate.

00:38:26.000 What, like— The idea is that Elon Musk is the sort of representative of a new sort of right-wing type of rhetoric and political perspective, and that you haven't made any revelations about a sort of shadow banning of left-wing figures.

00:38:43.000 Why is that, Matt?

00:38:45.000 Because we haven't seen it yet.

00:38:47.000 We're looking for it.

00:38:48.000 And I think one of the misperceptions that people have is that we're sitting in front of a terminal that has global access to everything.

00:38:56.000 And if that were the case, we'd be searching for all kinds of names.

00:39:01.000 But the data sets that we have, we've looked for Evidence in the other direction of, let's just say, requests from the Trump White House to get this person or that person banned.

00:39:15.000 I was told that by human sources, so I felt obligated to put that in one of the threads.

00:39:20.000 But we're not seeing that in the documents, so I can't write about it.

00:39:25.000 And I think everybody would say the same thing.

00:39:28.000 Which is, like, I don't care.

00:39:30.000 Like, if it's interesting, I'll put it out there.

00:39:33.000 But what we're seeing so far in these documents is not suggesting a whole lot of that.

00:39:41.000 Let's put it that way.

00:39:43.000 The most interesting revelations, or the most scintillating at least, appear to be the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story, Twitter having a secret blacklist, and the removal of Donald Trump and trying to create a unique case for the removal of a political figure.

00:39:59.000 But you believe that the most important thing is the relationship between law enforcement, government, and social media.

00:40:06.000 Is that right, Matt?

00:40:07.000 Yeah, and that was the thing that I was really most interested in headed into this project was, I think a lot of people have questions.

00:40:14.000 How involved is the government in monitoring and censoring the speech of ordinary people?

00:40:24.000 What we've seen so far already, and we have definite conclusive proof of, is that there are lots and lots of reports where we see Twitter executives saying things like, DHS flag this, the FBI flag this.

00:40:41.000 And then there's a whole thread where they decide what to do about it.

00:40:45.000 Do we remove it?

00:40:46.000 Do we put a label on it?

00:40:48.000 So there's tons of that stuff where they're clearly getting communications from the FBI.

00:40:56.000 We also know that they have meetings.

00:40:58.000 Not just with the FBI and the DHS, but also a surprise was the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

00:41:08.000 I hadn't heard that before.

00:41:10.000 That was a new one.

00:41:11.000 And then we're learning a lot about The kind of scraping of raw intelligence and fire hosing it to the government, all kinds of government agencies on the back end.

00:41:22.000 So the government is harvesting tons of information from these companies and then turning around and spitting it back to companies like Twitter in the form of requests for, you know, maybe bannings, maybe shadow bans, maybe deletions or labels and that sort of thing.

00:41:40.000 It's fascinating.

00:41:42.000 It is fascinating because I suppose back in the utopian early days of online spaces, I

00:41:49.000 think what all of us understood is that a new territory had emerged and like any territory

00:41:54.000 it could become democratised, it could become a tool of connection, a revolutionary tool,

00:42:00.000 something that would finally usurp the monopolised media spaces and their ongoing support of

00:42:07.000 an elitist agenda for want of a better phrase. But what has happened is that expertly the

00:42:15.000 social media spaces themselves have been corporatised and corralled and what you have demonstrated

00:42:21.000 through these revelations, through your revelations, is just examples of that in practice, that

00:42:28.000 these spaces are no longer free spaces, they are managed and controlled spaces, they are

00:42:32.000 not organic and the idea that social media could be used to create insurrections, even

00:42:38.000 if they are ideological insurrections rather than actual social revolutions, is being quite

00:42:45.000 strongly prohibited.

00:42:48.000 I think the thing that we were shocked by was the degree of idiosyncratic control over

00:42:55.000 the visibility of every single user account, hashtag, they have a whole...

00:43:03.000 universe of stuff that they can do to any single account.

00:43:07.000 They can dial it all the way down to you cannot be searched.

00:43:12.000 And then they, from there, there are like countless gradations of things that they can do all the way up to your account

00:43:18.000 will not trend.

00:43:20.000 Only people who follow you can see you.

00:43:23.000 Even people who follow you won't see you unless they search.

00:43:26.000 Like there's a whole list of stuff.

00:43:30.000 So they have absolute control over the visibility of basically everything.

00:43:36.000 And we haven't learned a lot about amplification of accounts yet because that appears

00:43:41.000 to be another side of the company.

00:43:42.000 But in terms of cutting it down, dialing it down, we're learning a lot about that.

00:43:48.000 So presumably, much of the angst about Elon Musk's acquisition

00:43:52.000 was that he was visibly and palpably not a compliant figure like Zuckerberg or other oligarchs

00:44:01.000 It isn't on board ideologically with the project.

00:44:04.000 We know that Zuckerberg wrote to Fauci and they're just sort of like, how can I be of any assistance that way?

00:44:09.000 So if this is happening at Twitter, obviously the assumption is that similar programs are operating throughout the social media world.

00:44:15.000 and another space that we are sort of taught to regard as neutral.

00:44:20.000 It is in fact a highly managed space that's curated and potentially, as you say, amplified when necessary.

00:44:26.000 We would assume it's true at Facebook, we'd assume it's true elsewhere.

00:44:29.000 Yeah, and we've seen evidence of the conversations within Twitter

00:44:34.000 about what they do at other platforms.

00:44:36.000 So you're right about that.

00:44:39.000 I think it's a safe assumption that every single one of the major platforms has basically the same arrangement with the government.

00:44:50.000 We can't say definitely exactly how it works yet, but I'm assuming, I think it's a safe supposition, that there's probably something similar to what's going on on Twitter at the other platforms as well.

00:45:03.000 Twitter is a different animal than the other platforms.

00:45:08.000 Like, for instance, one of the things we were told is that you can't get sort of a viral outbreak of

00:45:18.000 Political activity as quickly say on YouTube because people have to physically sit down and watch the video

00:45:24.000 On Twitter it can happen in in seconds in microseconds Which is one of the reasons why they pay such close

00:45:32.000 attention to every single thing that happens on the platform

00:45:36.000 What will Elon Musk's actual ability to?

00:45:42.000 To deny this kind of access to those sorts of agencies be and

00:45:48.000 And this is speculative, and I certainly wouldn't expect you to put your relationship in jeopardy, but how distinct... So firstly, how much is Elon Musk likely to oppose the previous regime's relationship?

00:46:01.000 And how different is Elon Musk's agenda likely to be given that many of his economic relationships are going to be sort of comparable?

00:46:10.000 You know, we don't know that yet.

00:46:12.000 And he explicitly, again, he told me we're not just interested in looking at bad stuff from the past.

00:46:20.000 If there's bad stuff in the future, we want you to look at that too.

00:46:25.000 So as we learn about all these things, we can look at it.

00:46:30.000 But I will say, As a journalist, I think all of us, we all feel the same way, which is that we don't know how long this opportunity to look at this material is going to exist.

00:46:44.000 And so I feel like we have a responsibility to try to dive into it as quickly as we can and as comprehensibly as we can before something happens.

00:46:54.000 Let's say there's a federal investigation or congressional investigation and the whole thing gets shut down.

00:47:02.000 We feel like we've got to look at that first.

00:47:04.000 And there are other questions, obviously, about what's going on at Twitter now.

00:47:07.000 If people have questions about Elon Musk, I mean, those are things that we can try to answer.

00:47:12.000 But I feel like right now, the priority is the documents that are in front of us.

00:47:19.000 Yeah, I completely appreciate that.

00:47:21.000 And they seem to be significant revelations.

00:47:24.000 You're only being attacked then, would you say, from the sort of establishment, the liberal establishment?

00:47:30.000 That's the only place their attacks are coming from.

00:47:32.000 There are no sort of folks on the right saying, oh, this is unconscionable.

00:47:37.000 Are all your attacks coming from that space?

00:47:41.000 I don't know where they're all coming from.

00:47:42.000 I mean, it's been pretty weird.

00:47:43.000 I've gotten threats and, you know, there's been harassment and all that stuff, but that comes with the territory.

00:47:50.000 I'm not going to complain about it.

00:47:55.000 But certainly the press backlash has been all I mean, it's been remarkable to see how they're all using the same language and everything.

00:48:06.000 It's almost like they got a memo from somewhere, which is incredible.

00:48:13.000 I don't know how they think this isn't a story to see.

00:48:19.000 screenshots of you know where it says the FBI has asked you to look at this and this and this

00:48:25.000 um that's not a story I I don't know any journalist who would look at that and not think that a real

00:48:31.000 journalist would look at that and not think well that's cool that's interesting we gotta

00:48:35.000 we gotta learn more about that. Yeah because I like Mehdi Hussain.

00:48:39.000 I've known him for a little while and he sort of was one of the most vociferously condemnatory saying like, oh, you're doing the bidding of a billionaire.

00:48:47.000 But I figured maybe he's on MSNBC and stuff.

00:48:50.000 I mean, it's such a it's so unfortunate that the very type of journalistic integrity that seems more vital now than ever seems to be In total decline, that people are, it seems, absolutely willing to uncritically absorb information and, as you say, reproduce almost a template of criticism, in the case of this story at least.

00:49:15.000 Yeah, and again, I don't know what journalist wouldn't be totally turned on by the opportunity to look through these kinds of documents.

00:49:26.000 I mean, for years, everybody who's used Twitter has had these questions like, do they do shadow banning?

00:49:33.000 Or is my follower count being suppressed?

00:49:35.000 Do they actually have that?

00:49:36.000 What can they look at?

00:49:37.000 When they look at my account.

00:49:40.000 And so when you see something like a screenshot of an account that has a big thing on it that says Trends Blacklist, it's incredible.

00:49:51.000 I mean, what journalist wouldn't be interested in that?

00:49:54.000 I find that just absolutely amazing.

00:49:56.000 And this idea that, oh, because, you know, a source is whatever, we can't be interested in the documents.

00:50:06.000 That's never the case.

00:50:09.000 Look at, for instance, WikiLeaks.

00:50:11.000 You're talking about stuff that was stolen.

00:50:14.000 We're not supposed to care about that.

00:50:15.000 We're supposed to care about what's true, and it's our job to figure out whether these documents are real or not, and understand what's happening in it.

00:50:23.000 But the provenance of it isn't supposed to be really that much of a factor.

00:50:27.000 Obviously, Elon Musk is a part of this story, and we've got to address it at some point.

00:50:32.000 But much more important is the stuff that we're looking at.

00:50:36.000 Yeah, in particular, I suppose, the idea that it's ongoing and that while there is this sense that we live in a time of great censorship, where powerful interests are able to absolutely manipulate narratives and remain unaccountable, it seems that, yeah, I feel like you're totally right.

00:50:56.000 And in this instance, I suppose, like, you know, I've, you know, I think I've mentioned it to you and I've certainly mentioned it on the show enough, God knows, but like, you know, I had a brief conversation with Elon Musk once and I thought, He's sort of operating in a trans-moral space anyway. 0.79

00:51:08.000 He's almost so intelligent and curious that I felt like, you know, that what he's doing here is likely legitimate, even if there is some entrepreneurial flair being shown in sort of bringing Twitter into the forefront in a kind of an interesting and elegant piece of rebranding.

00:51:25.000 He was pretty curious, he thought he might get killed as well.

00:51:27.000 That was pretty interesting.

00:51:31.000 Yeah, I had a similar reaction to meeting him.

00:51:36.000 I'm usually pretty good at reading people.

00:51:37.000 I had a really tough time reading him.

00:51:42.000 Are we still on the air?

00:51:44.000 I'm listening.

00:51:45.000 Okay.

00:51:45.000 And, um, Yeah, I mean, I think some of the things that he did that were suggestions, like, I was very skeptical initially of the idea of putting all this out on Twitter first.

00:52:01.000 And, you know, I'm a long form reporter, I like to explain everything, you know, and all that.

00:52:08.000 But there, there's a kind of brilliance in using Twitter to flay Twitter.

00:52:13.000 And it's kind of also a burn on the regular media who tightly controlled Twitter for so long.

00:52:21.000 There's a little bit of genius in that that I didn't recognize at first.

00:52:28.000 He's an interesting person and difficult to categorize, but I think that's a long term job

00:52:40.000 rather than trying to do the spade work of digging into these docs and figuring out what they mean. 0.62

00:52:48.000 Absolutely, I think you're right, because the revelations are in themselves,

00:52:52.000 so weighty that to add to that, what is the...

00:52:55.000 Presumed teleology or intention of Elon Musk who is a fascinating figure and anyone that powerful and that wealthy who happens to be pretty idiosyncratic also and isn't just towing the line is it's difficult not to reflect on what his agenda might be and where this might be going because I know he's Deeply into sort of off planetary solutions and transhumanism.

00:53:14.000 He's got a lot of interesting sort of like ideas But thank you Matt. 0.96

00:53:18.000 That's really helpful, but we were talking earlier about the Ukraine war I suppose in light of David Letterman talking to Zelensky and just their presentation of this product is pretty sanitary or hagiographic even because I What I feel is that with the way that Putin is reported on continually is that sort of a malodorous and sick filthy old Parkinson ridden self-defecating filth bag. 0.76

00:53:45.000 It feels like there's an inability to think critically in the nuanced way about a complex situation.

00:53:53.000 When Jeffrey Sachs came on the show he gave us a sort of a rundown on events between NATO and Russia from the 90s.

00:54:01.000 So you know he just gave us a sort of a Whistle-stop tour between, well, they said NATO wouldn't impinge, NATO impinged.

00:54:07.000 They said they wouldn't meddle in elections, they meddled in elections.

00:54:10.000 And all the way through to sort of military-industrial complex stuff.

00:54:14.000 Do you think we're at a point, Matt, where all news is propaganda, or at least the majority of mainstream news is propaganda?

00:54:22.000 I think we're pretty close to that.

00:54:24.000 I mean, I know for a fact that there are certain stories out there that would not have a home in traditional corporate media.

00:54:36.000 And that is new, right?

00:54:38.000 Once upon a time, A news organization was most interested in whether or not they had a big story.

00:54:45.000 They didn't think about other considerations.

00:54:48.000 Very rarely you would see something like the New York Times reaching out to the CIA or having conversations with them about whether or not they should print something.

00:55:00.000 But now I think that's routine across the entire business.

00:55:04.000 I think maybe not the contact, but there's a presumption that we only print things that we think are going to help whatever the cause is.

00:55:16.000 And so there's, you know, you combine that with the social media censorship and manipulation, which is just so sophisticated.

00:55:28.000 Now, I don't know how you would cover something like the Ukraine war.

00:55:34.000 You know, and have an impact, right?

00:55:37.000 Because you'd be drowned out if you had a counter-narrative fact by so much other stuff.

00:55:45.000 It would be difficult to report on.

00:55:46.000 I mean, we're looking at the way that they're, like, suppressing or deciding whether or not to suppress hashtags that involve this war.

00:55:56.000 We just started doing that.

00:55:58.000 And so, yeah, it's kind of an artificial landscape.

00:56:04.000 Have they?

00:56:06.000 Have you seen the repression of hashtags relating to this war?

00:56:10.000 Yeah, I have.

00:56:13.000 I've seen them also decide not to do it.

00:56:16.000 There was one One case where there was like a hashtag, I stand with Putin, where I was very surprised to see that they discussed it, but then they ended up leaving it up because they couldn't find any coordinated inauthentic activity behind it.

00:56:36.000 But there's other stuff that they took down and there's other things that are interesting.

00:56:42.000 But we're only just starting to look in that direction.

00:56:44.000 I think sometimes it was arbitrary and just as a result of people's sort of personal political alliances.

00:56:50.000 The reason that it sort of, broadly speaking, has been favourable to the establishment liberal class was just because that's the general affiliation of the people that were on the team.

00:57:00.000 Yeah, that's one of the things that's amazing about this, the stuff that we've already put out even is you can see in these threads, somebody will say, oh, this got escalated by whatever the ops team, what do you think?

00:57:13.000 And then like two minutes later, you'll get a decision from some very senior executive who will say, nah, you know, that's fine.

00:57:21.000 Because The executive clearly either thinks it's true based on whatever or did a Google search and found an NPR article that they liked.

00:57:32.000 I mean, it's that unsophisticated on that level.

00:57:37.000 It's like they'll get a request about something and then they'll do like a two-second Google search and that will be the basis for whether or not they censor it.

00:57:46.000 It's just really weird.

00:57:48.000 Yeah, I suppose that's why the Hunter Biden laptop story is so significant, because there was obviously an assumption that that would have a negative impact on the election, so they repressed it, and now 18 months later, mainstream media in our country, like the BBC, it's just, oh yeah, that was true, that got repressed.

00:58:05.000 And then what do you think about, sort of, I suppose in the realm of celebrity, Kanye West was sort of like, he was banned before, now he's banned again.

00:58:14.000 It seems like there's, you know, I guess there has to be a line around hate speech or racism in whatever form, so I guess that's, in a way, that's relatively uniform.

00:58:25.000 But then the figures like James Woods or whatever, who seem like they're just like old-school conservatives, like they're not like even that Particularly political.

00:58:33.000 They're just like your uncle, who's a bit different from you.

00:58:36.000 Right.

00:58:38.000 The ubiquity of James Woods is kind of hilarious.

00:58:41.000 You would think he was the most important person on earth.

00:58:43.000 I mean, he's kind of like the spiritual opposite of Susan Sarandon.

00:58:50.000 Like, he's responsible for everything.

00:58:53.000 He keeps popping up in these discussions.

00:58:55.000 They keep having long discussions about what to do with him.

00:58:58.000 And we found this amazing one where they're like, well, He's not guilty this time, but we're going to hit him hard next vio.

00:59:08.000 Which proves that the institution has muscle memory, right?

00:59:13.000 It isn't just looking individually at each case, it's remembering.

00:59:17.000 And that's one of the things that happened with Trump too.

00:59:21.000 Yeah, I guess that's another way of saying there is a bias and a clear bias.

00:59:26.000 I wonder at times, Matt, when we have these conversations, if the sort of culture war more broadly keeps us kind of throbbing in a space that's relatively convenient for Power that transcends those kind of bounds.

00:59:40.000 You know, when you consider like the judicial structures that prevent corporations, profits being impeded in foreign countries.

00:59:47.000 When you consider the sort of the advancing power of unelected bodies like the WEF and the sort of established power of groups like the IMF.

00:59:57.000 When we're sort of fretting about James Woods, his political perspectives, perhaps we have, you know, somewhat taken our eye off the ball.

01:00:07.000 Yeah, I think that's a big part of this whole story, which is you can kind of maybe justify there being some kind of involvement in suppressing this or that.

01:00:22.000 I guess there's an argument for that, but they're doing it at a level that's so micro and so And so ridiculously thorough that it can't possibly be anything but a dystopian project.

01:00:41.000 I mean, they want to absolutely control or at least have some impact on basically every communication that happens on their platform, which is Which seems crazy to me, but I don't know about you, but that seems more in the realm of Orwell to me.

01:01:02.000 Yeah, I suppose so, because I think that none of us, I don't mean none of us, obviously some of us do, but we're pretty anti all forms of racism and obviously anti-Semitism, but I feel that elsewhere in social media, literal far-right groups, because of convenient affiliations even within the current conflict, are sort of promoted, celebrated, supported, given medals at Disneyland.

01:01:23.000 You know, there's an unwillingness to kind of allow yourself to fully inhabit the complexity of the world we find ourselves in.

01:01:31.000 Just the continual nomination of plain villains and overt baddies and a kind of reductionism that can't lead to solutions because it doesn't take in anything like the necessary scale of the truth.

01:01:43.000 Yeah, you have to have gradations of things in order to understand the world and they're not really allowing that to happen.

01:01:49.000 So, um, in any case, Russell, I apologize.

01:01:53.000 I've got, I've got a, I just got pinged about something.

01:01:56.000 I've got to go.

01:01:56.000 Um, but this has been great, great to talk to you and thank, thanks so much.

01:02:00.000 I hope it's not an execution order and we appreciate you coming on Matt, but particularly at the last minute, it's lovely to chat to you and we'll see you soon.

01:02:08.000 Thanks so much.

01:02:09.000 Thanks, you both.

01:02:10.000 All right, take care.

01:02:11.000 Bye-bye, mate.

01:02:11.000 Take care.

01:02:13.000 Nice hat work from Matt Taibbi there, as well, to tip your hat.

01:02:17.000 So cool.

01:02:17.000 He's a lovely person.

01:02:20.000 OK, listen, we're going to wrap up our show on Rumble today, but let me back ammo that stuff for Matt Taibbi.

01:02:26.000 Come back to that, if you wouldn't mind.

01:02:27.000 I'm not a teleprompter.

01:02:28.000 Thanks.

01:02:29.000 Matt wrote the book, Why Me?

01:02:31.000 Today's media makes us despise one another.

01:02:33.000 You can subscribe to Matt Substack on TK News and follow Matt on Twitter.

01:02:38.000 If you're not doing that already.

01:02:41.000 On the show tomorrow is Silky Carlo.

01:02:44.000 She's going to be talking to us more about surveillance, entrenchment surveillance.

01:02:49.000 Glenn Greenwald, the OG of investigative journalism, is coming on the show. 0.91

01:02:53.000 He's also a sort of a fascist. 0.98

01:02:56.000 He's a fascist. 1.00

01:02:57.000 We've got a fascist coming. 1.00

01:02:58.000 What are we going to call him?

01:03:01.000 Rumble Pundit?

01:03:02.000 Rumble Anchor?

01:03:04.000 A member of the Rumble family?

01:03:07.000 I'm going to work on the language around that.

01:03:08.000 The new show looks good.

01:03:10.000 Looks really cool.

01:03:11.000 Glenn's new show.

01:03:12.000 Does it?

01:03:12.000 Have you watched it?

01:03:14.000 Watch some stuff this morning.

01:03:15.000 I've got to watch some stuff.

01:03:16.000 It'll come up in the course of my investigations obviously.

01:03:19.000 Steve-O's coming on as well on Thursday, the great Steve-O, a man who pursues valour in outrageous places through outrageous acts and also Tim Robbins is coming on the show.

01:03:28.000 We're going to talk to him about the pandemic and probably liberalisms and the limitations of that sort of philosophy and perhaps the disingenuity.

01:03:37.000 At its heart.

01:03:37.000 That though, you can see first by joining us at 8am ET, 5am PT and 1pm GMT because we're recording the interview first on Locals.

01:03:46.000 If you want to join us on Locals, that's our membership community, StayFreeAF, then there's a link in the description.

01:03:51.000 You can join us now.

01:03:52.000 Otherwise, we will see you in a couple of minutes over on Locals to answer your questions.

01:03:56.000 So think about questions from today's show or about anything.

01:03:59.000 Otherwise, stay free.

01:04:00.000 See you tomorrow.

01:04:00.000 Thanks for joining us.

Stay Free - Russel Brand - December 12, 2022

The Truth About Twitter Files, With Matt Taibbi - #044 - Stay Free with Russell Brand

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