Debunking Online Moral Panics

Am I tough enough? A strong and stable leadership? Total rubre. Hell yes, I'm tough enough. Shut Fidge. Not another one. It's the politics show cast He Taylor Lorenz, welcome Politics Joe. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to have you. It's a pleasure to have you. Just off the boat from Los Angeles. Yes. I got it. Literally last night, less than twenty four hours ago. Yeah. You've missed all of the nice weather, I'm afraid to. It's terrible. It's freezing, but it's a fun change from literally perfect weather, which is what we have in it every. Yeah supp It's exciting a small bit, doesn't it? For anyone who lives under a rock or doesn't have access to the internet, how would you like to introduce yourself? I'm a technology journalist and content creator. I make YouTube videos now too and a podcast. so Yeah, a report on online culture and technology. I wrote a book called Extremely Online about the rise of the content creator industry And I've been doing it for like fifteen years primo culture vulture of the online world. that sounds a lot more catchy, so feel that. So what has you in the UK At the moment. You've told me there earlier on that like in previous jobs, you've been over and back working with like publications and that kind of thing. But what are you here for at the moment? Yeah. I am giving a talk in Berlin next week on online anonymity and I report a lot on a lot of really bad laws in the U.S. that A lot of people in the UK are actually driving. And so I'm meeting with a bunch of people here. I've also been I wrote a couple of pieces for the Guardian on sort of online anonymity and stuff like that. So mostly just doing reporting and meeting and mayaybe trying some British food for myself We could go into the British food stuff, I think maybe not. maybe. mayaybe save the food the boil do go there. Yeah, boiled beans or whatever they ate here. But you were saying there the kind of the laws that the UK is kind of flirting with putting in or in some cases have put in in the last six months to a year I think you were talking about the Online Safety Act veryically the last couple of days. just Give us like an elevator of what your opposition to it is. Where to begin? I I think it's terrible legislation. I think that right now we're seeing this global move. and's I mean, the UK and Australia are kind of and a lot of countries in Europe are leading the charge. you saw Macron talking about sort of instituting similar legislation There's this global effort to censor and surveill the internet and roll out mass surveillance and censorship laws under the guise of online safety which is, of course what a lot of more authoritarian countries like Russia and others and China to another side, obviously, they a very different internet have done previously. And I think we in the Western world used to criticize countries for that sort of authoritarian stuff, but now we're seeking to replicate it. And yeah, it's all done under the name of protecting kids. None of these laws protect kids. In fact, they endanger the most vulnerable kids as we're seeing right now happen in Australia. I'm opposed to it on almost every level. Do you think so if if there's an opposition to kind of the I guess the government line is along the lines of this is protecting people. As you've just said, you don't think it does Should the internet and the online space be completely unregulated or is so No no, no no. No, I actually really support a quite intense regulation Primarily privacy laws, know, which we're seeing obliterated. I mean, the EU is talking about doing chat control, which would completely eliminate encryption putting whistleblowers journalists, you know, et cetera in danger So I'm for a lot a very different regulation, which would actually I think curb the power of these big tech companies. I think these big tech companies are not good actors. I think they have done A lot of enormous harm to society in a lot of ways, and I I am very critical of them, but I think that the we need to regulate them in ways that are actually effective and curb corporate power. And we need to view sort of the problems with it as problems with corporate power, notot like they've created some special product that know we need mass censorship to to kind of th it. because as we're seeing now, like, okay, social media is kind of in decline and now AI is on the rise. When we create speech law regulations, we don't even target the actual kind of predatory business practices of Big Tag. in that it sounds like There is kind of Well, it's not necessarily speaking of both sides of your mouth. It's like There is a need to regulate. There is a need to curb the power that these entities have, but there's also The way that we're going about it is not the right way. Well, the way that you're going about it is not curbing their power even remotely. And in fact, it allows them to consolidate power because often the biggest, I mean, as we've seen in the UK Hundreds, if not thousands, I think actually probably thousands, tens of thousands. who knows how many small forums are being obliterated. There's this great list that somebody put together online of all of the forums that you know small social platforms, small social networks, communities that have been shut down. A lot of forums for abuse. So some of the first content censored that was deplatformed after the Online Sfety Act went into effect was alcoholics Anonymous forums. It was forums where actually young people can learn about sexual abuse Suort for domestic violence survivors, LGBTQ youth, communities, but also things like multiplayer role playay games that you people have been playing for twenty years from the early internet, a hamster care forum. You know, theseese small communities can't afford to comply with this regulation. So they shut down and that consolidates power on Facebook. All of those communities now they're Facebook groups That's kind of the interesting point of it, I guess, isn't it? that like you reach a point of the internet where like I guess in the early two thousands and the twenty ten s, there was like the segmentation, fragmentation of the internet. where It didn't necessarily, I mean, things like Facebook only existed to talk about like what you did in school back then or whatever it might be But now it's like They exist as not only the thing to see what your aunt and uncle are doing. but also the thing that's manipulating your aunt and uncle to vot for the far right, but also then They can have a very wholesome conversation with their neighbor or maybe a not so wholesome conversation with their neighbor. So like, I guess is it Th Governments rely maybe too heavily on these big thehemothits of social media of the online space. to consult and kind of recommend the ways to regulate themselves. Like there's always this catch up being played between governments and online online companies. Well, I think like the governments, you know, the governments want control over the online world, and that's always been true, right? Like they want to control the information ecosystem. they want to control for some good reasons and some bad reasons I think what's hard is that like, you know Facebook, these big social media companies, ultimately they' data harvesting companies, right? They rely on monetizing our data. That is how they profit. There's that famous clip of Mark Zuckerberg when he was hauled in front U. S. Congress when he says, Senator I sell ads, and he's explaining their business model, right? whichich is harvesting people's datas and selling ads again. It's same with Google That's how the biggest sort of tech behemoths operate. Now U Free expression is not It necessary to that business model. In fact, if they censor content in a way that is that makes the politicians in whatever country you know they're operating in happy, they can have, you know, they can have a very friendly regulatory environment and censor whoever the government wants and continue to sell ads and monetize everyone's aid and whatever. But the government is able to say, look at it we cracked down. know, we crack down on these companies really but really you haven't done anything to meaningfully target these companies business model and you haven't done anything to keep people safer and now you've just mass censored, large swaths of the internet, usually progressive spaces. So you know, I think it's I think we need people that actually target these companies, you know, business model and say like the problems like with disinformation, with you know, all of the kind of like negative effects of the internet, they're They're not just like they're a natural consequence of this hyper profit driven interternet. It's this quest to monetize absolutely every interaction, maximize engagement at all costs, right? Th like that. It's this quest for profit. And if we actually curtail their profits and regulate the companies in a way that targets their actual business models, again, bypassing things like compreereensive data privacyform,etceta By the way, at least in Europe, there's some concept of data privacy. We have truly nothing in America you know, that allows for free expression, allows for more and also more competition as you know targeting these companies for their monopolistic anti competitive business practices too We can get back to the internet that I think a lot of us loved when we were younger, which is like less profit driven, less outrage bait, you know more niche communities, more free expression And just a healthier internet climate all around Do you think there's an element of how the kind of particularly in America, but like the rightward shift of politics has kind of turbocharged how that internet space operates now and not just for like a profit motive, but also in how online culture has developed into a more kind of for want of a better word degenerate kind of space, you know, like the proliferation, like just seeing racism J seeing like just gore, these kinds of things on a daily basis on your timeline in a rather gratuitous way to just for the profit motive of smaller users. So I guess that's the thing with like Things like Twitter, for example, that a defender of X would turn around and say, well, Users now profit off Twitter whereas they didn't use They don't profit off Twitter though. Elon Musk has a fake content creator reward system where he rewards the most far right wackos with tens of, you know thousands of dollars when he decides to give a checkout. That's not a sustainable content creator. You know you can't build a successful media company that way. L that's just like Elon Musk rewarding his crazy you know, fans on there. I think one thing that's been frustrating. I mean, you mentioned the far right, like I've been covering these far right Christian fundamentalist groups for a long time, and they've wanted these online safety rules since the nineties. That's where we in the US, we originally had the Communications Decency Act, which was a lot you know sort of the earlier version of the Online safety Act And They've been pushing know this movement for decades and they really didn't get any traction until recently And the way that they've been able to amass traction is actually by framing their, you know opppposition to free expression online as cracking down on big text. So you see them pass these really crazy laws like in the US, we have fost assessed a devastating law that led to the deep platforming of a lot of progressive content, but also like it was aimed at cracking down on sex you know content online. It ultimately deplatformed LGBTQ people. and So we see them amass more power and a lot more influence by getting these you liberals on board with them. and basically like regulating the internet in a way that consolidates power on the right. And so you see also Elon Musk taking over Twitter, you see the forced sale of TikTok to Larry Alllliston and co. You see just All of these regulations that allow the far right to consolidate power online while and not to mention, In addition to that, the far right has also built their own alternative social media ecosystem. So you for all the talk of online harms, you could go on rumble or Gab or true social, right? And there's a lot more extremist, harmful content on those platforms. But those are never brought up in any of the conversations about regulating online content because they don't care about regulating far right content online fundamentally So they've amassed all of this power online. they built an alternative sort of social media ecosystem and there is no answer to that on the left. Like the entire left basically doesn't engage with tech policy or they sort of just get on board with the Heritage Foundation's tech policy. And So I think we're just slipping further and further into this like reactionary space. Before we get into that, just I't like talking so much. I' like,, I get so mad about it, I could rant. The point on like the consolidation of power, I think, is one that in my head is When you look at what the EU do when it comes to data privacy and data protections and the kind of the laws that go alongside that, whether they're to do with content moderation or whatever it might be Ultimately, it seems like it's a problem needs to be solved in America because if we're all using these platforms that are made in America for an American business motive and to kind of prop up in American cultural Varatas It doesn't really matter what we do here. Yes. So But I guess like Which is by the way what people in Myanmar realized a decade ago, right? Yeah Yeahah, exactly. So you've got these kinds of whenever there's going to be a questioning or a challenge to the American pro profit motive or the American global interest The freedom of the internet doesn't really exist in an unregulated space because it's still functioning to serve the interests of the American right. Yeah So what What benefit is it to talk about online safety, online regulation data sovereignty in the European Union if we don't have the levers of power here. Well, yeah, I mean, it's I would argue that it's I mean What they're doing is just harm, right? What they're doing is like they're trying to sort of clap back at America, They're trying to like regulate meta, but they're not really doing anything. So what they're ultimately doing is just harming their own citizens with these oppressive laws that are then used to censor actual homegrown native platforms, like these native communities that are like you know, local communities that are like actually British people making, you know, I do think that like all of Europe is waking up to this now, which again, like especially in Southeast Asia and some of these other like places or Africa, like where we saw you know, disinformation on Facebook sort of directly affect their political system and them not being able to respond. So they learned that lesson, I would say, like a decade ago, and they were like, hey, this is a problem that by the way, like these American companies are accountable to no one. These tech billionaires are effectively like almost their own nation states. they' you know like someone like Elon Musk is like going out and like in charge of internet access in Ukraine or wh. you know, like they're doing these huge deals and no one can really effectively regulate them except the American government and And I think Europe is sort of grappling that with that now. It's just that instead of trying to build a sort of tech forward ecosystem that facilitates innovation in throughout Europe or in the UK and foster these small communities and say like how can we build up more local power online? How can we ensure that you know people here can create groups that maybe don't challenge meta, but like offer an alternative. Inead of that, it's like, nope, let's just ban let's censor all the internet. and actually you know, we're actually kind of fine with meta as long as like they censor the internet in a way that we find acceptable. That's in line with Kure Starmer's you belief system today. There is like a Pot of money, a fund that's like an AI innovation fund that the UK is announced. Labour government have kind of That' right, They're best to be these champions of like Web four point zero be the AI superpower of Europe I think it's his life how much is it five hundred million pounds, I think. Okay, that's slightly better. One time France was like We're gonna be the AI like super hub or whatever. And I think it was like ten million. Everyone was making fun of them. because it was just like Okay, that's that's amazing. But that's nothing compared to the like trillions and trillions of dollars that, you know Well this is it. It's like, I mean, coming from Ireland, there is kind of like a feeling for me when it when you see the UK or any other the European country kind of try and attract American investment in this way. And I will say as far as I'm aware, the The Labor project is to do with developing British based and British owned AI companies But there is still this kind of thing. I think it was Chat GBT put their European headquarters in London Reently. Yeah When you see countries like Ireland, for example, that have put all of this effort into ha an FDI from Meta, Facebook, Amazon in the past and effectively they have a data center somewhere in the countryside that employs twenty people to be security. Yeah or a kind of customer service headquarters in the Docks lands of Dublin City when there's a housing crisis or whatever it might be And you just kind of see the the disjointed nature of it where it seems like governments want to Just say the words AI, interternet, Facebook. to then not having any real knowledge or them like push to regulate or change So particularly when it comes to AI, it just seems like it om loo where we've seen what this kind of cozying up to these companies has done in the past. Yes. And now we're in a different phase of that now that we're doing the exact same thing. We've not learned the lessons. It's so terrifying that we haven't learned the lesson and we aren't trying to change the architecture of the internet. You know, one thing that I talk about, I am a big fan of like sort of the federated model of social media, which Blue Sky runs on, masked it on. It's this idea of ort. So for instance, it used to be, you know, when you had a phone number, for instance, you couldn't take your contacts, you couldn't take your phone number with you if you went to a different carrier. That's kind of the current social media paradigm that we have now, where like you're sort of trapped in that you can't get Instagram content off Instagram on another app that's designed that way that has all your followers that We could force these platforms to federate. Mastodon is a European is based in Europe. Like, you know, there's a of Europeans that are engaged in like the open source technology movement, the Federate. we could have this like open, decentralized, like less profit driven internet Actually a lot of Europeans are like heavily engaged in building those tools. those tools are under attack from and those sort of that idea of social media is not even one that's on the table. When you talk to these lawmakers, they don't even understand the concept of federated social media. Like they don't they only sort of No Facebook because they watched, I don't know, like that show adolescence or something and they they they like have a concept of the internet and so it's hard to kind of talk to them of like, Listen, not only should you not be welcoming in these American tech behemoths the same way that you did last time. Hello, you should learn your lesson. But also why don' why don't foster a different version of the internet? Why don't you, you know, that doesn't mean just funding a bunch of stupid for profit tech startups. That means like you know really changing the way you think about the online world. But it also means centering free expression in a way that I think they don't you know they want a lot of control. Here the bottom line is growth when it comes to these things, right? So like when you're talking about, I mean, fantastic idea to have like a federated internet to have like the the kind of the anonymity, but also the encryption and to be fully protected and fully sovereign in the online space You're talking to people that whether it's that thing from a couple of years ago in the Senate where you've got Congresspeople asking Max Zuckerberg how to unlock their phone.' the kind of We said do you have FINstTA or something? Do you do Finsta? I can't remember it quote. You know, I mean, this is another issue is that we have all these lawmakers in charge that don't understand the internet. that also don't understand a positive case for the internet. you know, L they don't understand how the internet can be liberatory I think they did for a minute in the early twenty tw s, you had this like tech optimism and that's why they were drinking all the corporate cool aid. They werere like, maybe the stuff is amazing and it's like Now the companies are not necessarily amazing, but it is good to foster connection and knowledge sharing. And again, this is what we always sort of criticized countries like China and Russia for was for having this like localized internet that's sort of national to them and that other people can't get access to. like I do believe in sort of open sharing of information around the world. But Yeahah, I mean, I think European countries need to need to also like put as with AI, especially put smart regulation in place. So tellell me about that then. A we doing wrong when it comes to AI? Be I mean, you've got the new stories that it'll be like. jobs are being taken away by AI. you've got the kind of water thing, all of these kinds of Are they true? Are they not true stories about AI, but also the genuine risk that AI causes to freedom of speech, disinformation, all these kinds of things. Yeah. I mean, I think we definitely want to preserve open and free access to information. And I think it's terrifying to see a lot of these governments, especially in the U.S. already trying to Basically censoreor the information that people can get through AI to kind of know comply with whatever the Trump administration, you know wants it to say. just all the various kind of beliefs they have around that. So that's not good. But I think we need to look at it from a labor perspective. I mean, you mentioned, like how are these technologies being implemented? How are companies allowed to implement these technologies? What can they automate away? and how can they do that? I mean, I think The conversation that happened recently in the U S in New York around like It's not necessarily AI, but Wo, Wayo in New York and specifically like looking at, I mean, at that time They said no to Wayo New York. there's all these people who and I'm forced self driving broadly because I live in L.A and everyone drives insane. But But howrive what a disruptive force that would be to the taxi cab economy and think like, listen, we might want to get to self driving eventually and we want to move forward there. It's not like we're against that, but like let's do this in a smart way so that we don't displace all of these workers overnight and also ensure that we build a lot of really strong safety nets for people that are about to be displaced I mean, at least here they have like the NHS. We don't even have like healthca care that's not tied to employ inmerica so it's a mess. But like I think all European countries could build a stronger safety net and plan for these mass layoffs that could potentially happen. And also let's not use it for mass surveillance by the government. No, sure, sure. Well, that's the thing I think you were hitting at there a second ago. The idea like We could spend hours talking about your healthcare system. but I mean, the healthcare system in this country, although compomaratively might be something to hold up and say hold Isn't this what we aspire to be in America There is kind of there's contracts with Palantir that within the NHS and there's kind of the when we're talking about like Data surveillance, we're talking about the risks of the government being involved in this kind of overreach I guess A counter argument would be, well, there are already companies that we're giving contracts to to do that in the public infrastructure. So like with companies like Palant here, how do we is that like Is there a part of this where we need to say there's actually the monopolies themselves need to be broken up and either federalized, socialized, whatever it might be. Yeah. Well, that would, I mean, again, I don't know how you would do that. I don't really know about UK law enough of like how could you break up Palanter just in you know what I mean? I don't know. I guess But I mean, again, it's to the earlier point that like it's It's an American problem that's dilute it spread across. these American countries. But I think like also why are you working with Palentir? Why don't you work with a different? Why don't you build those capabilities in Europe and work with a company that is a lot more responsible and a lot more accountable? to localized interests versus just relying on this company run by Alex Carpet America. Why shouldn't the government do it rather than outsourcing it Or the government could absolutely do. a one hundred percent. Yeah, yeah. no, that would be amazing. I just don't trust the government always to develop technology, but if they could do it, they should do it Um, But I mean, I think it's also like, you know, There's a lot more government infrastructure in Europe that it's hard for me to even conceive of as the government building infrastructure tools for the people. That seems crazy. But yeah, I mean, it would be great. provroided there's oversight. L I think this's the problem either whether you're talking about corporations or the government, we're seeing AI integrated into all these systems with no oversight. and often the AI systems like the AI tools are oversold or there's no There's no sort of check. like peopleeople will sort of eagerly embrace them and integrate them. And it's like, well, but is this even making you are these systems fair? Are they equitable? is this actually streamlining process in a way that matters? Mr Speaker, I am a Ga. It's theatic show cast Sun, I'm off on holiday next week. That's true. yeah, I'm really looking forward to the time alone. And what will I be using when I get there? I'll be using Sailing. I would have thought so, yeah. The generous people at Saily, of course, with a discount code for Listeners to politics, Joe. I'm going to be punching in Joe Sunday and I'm going to be getting fifteen percent off using one of their Eims while I'm abroad Oh. You used it recently, didn't you? What was the best thing you ate in India Oh, do you know what? I was in a city called Varanasi There was a very good food culture in Barnasi and there was a thing called a Tamatter chat., did you use anything in particular when you got to India? I used Sali Yeah. No discount code that time. 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Well, he could give it a go Drop us a thumbs up in the comment box if Ben has put the description As where I promised. He'd better because otherwise we're in breach of contract. ScamicQR code. You see a lot of stories about how like Jen Alpha and Gen ie are kind of like the doomer generation when it comes to the online space. they I guess with you and I, we grew up in a world where you had like the Arab Spring, you had the occupy movement, you had all of these things that were born out of social media. whereereas For people that are teenagers and early twenties now, their entire existence online has either been Fake videos of people being outraged about immigrants in their country or president ragging on whatever whatever person that day is upset him. Yeah U But within that, you've got this kind of like mass signing off or the desire to not be interacting with the online space at all. What do you think of that? Do you think like this is This is kind of like a a generational Like once once boomers G We're not going to really be this is going to be a very niche topic for people in the millennial generation Yeah. what just the harm like what do you? I mean, when it comes to like online harm, when it comes to surveillance, when it comes to things like that, if you've got a generation that are coming through now that have just signed out Yeah or like only I think that's bad necessity. Yeah. I think that's bad because we're getting these young people to cede their agency And the internet is like, I mean, one of the most powerful political it probably is the most powerful political organizing tool of our time. It's the most powerful kind of tool for mainstreaming ideas and policies, etcetera. And the far right has leveraged that. No one on the far right is logging off. No one on the far right is getting less online. like they are moving further and further into these spaces, controlling more and more of the internet. and It's this like progressive idea now of like, oh, log off, donon't go on there. don't we don't want to be too online. And it's like, okay, great. So you have seeded the entire internet to the far right now That's not going to work out for you I understand like that's not to say like personally people shouldn't log off if they feel overwhelmed. I just mean like from like a sort of a political strategy standpoint, but But yeah, I mean, I think I understand why people also want to tap out because we live in this like internet hellscape and it's hard to kind of see a positive version of the internet right now If you aren just a young person just trying to like make friends or get community or whatever, and that's why it's so hard as well that we're like shutting them out of these spaces. Like the people that do rely on the online world who don't have that de facto you know sort of offline world to to fall back on, they're some of the most vulnerable kids. and Now we're cutting them off intentionally and stigmatizing their own social use. You know, that's what's so harmful with, I think a lot of the rhetoric from the older people is like there's this idea of like you know, oh you're if you're on the interternet, that's something bad. That's something bad that you should mitigate. And it's like, well, what are you doing online? Are you learearning to video edit? Are you expressing yourself? Are you connecting? Are you talking, you know, on Faceetime with your friend like discord voice chat with your friends, like Or are you just scrolling and consuming content that is ultimately not helping you? You know, It's not really a binary thing. That's why I hate this like war on screen timee or whatever. It's like, well scre timee is such a What are you doing on your screen? You could be faceetimeing your mother, you know? L it's just a ridiculous kind of binary the kind of potential of seeding the online space to the rise. I mean in the last maybe ten years, certainly since twenty sixteen, I think is like a ye. It's certainly some a point you can define as this is when optimism around tech and the social media space shifted. Yeah Why do you think the far right are so successful online with the left handnt Again, they they I mean, the reason we have Trump and the reason that we have that movement was because they recognized very early there was That is how they were going to amass power. Trump came from the internet. When there's that moment at the Dplorable, that big event that they had with all the influencers the night before the election where Mike Servish gets up on stage and's like, we did it. Like we use the internet, you know, the interternet brought us here. I was in the room at the Hilton When Trump was elected, that on election night in twenty sixteen, and the contrast between that who wasn't at the Hilton versus who was at the Javid center, where Clinton was is like all mainstream media There were little like Reddit forum admins that were there that night for Trump's win. Like those are the people that put him in power. So and same thing with you know Brexit, which was very driven by the internet. I think these reactionaries recognized how they could sort of weaponize these platforms early U And then they also realized how they could shape tech policy in a way that would give them power that would really cement their power on these platforms by pushing these online safety laws that basically Again, obliterate privacy, obliterate progressive content from the internet And now we're just playing catch up. I don't even know. we're so far behind. What we were saying earlier as well about kind of like the The erosion of that kind of like hyper niche community based internet where you've now got I'm talking about the manosphere of that. There is the from going from these niche topics that are all kind of like just generally nice.. There's nothing like too Overtly political about anyone's like cat videos or where they went for dinner that day. Yeah The manosphere seems to have been the one thing that is kind of the the driving force of culture. in whether you consume it or not, you're still aware of it. You know who clavicular is, you know what And part of the reason we're aware of that too is because the traditional media is obsessed with amplifying it. You know, like they're not, they've sort of un They make these people that are ultimately quite niche online figures into nationally known people. And that's not to say people like Andrew Tate and Cliffly don't have their own online power, but I think we've also failed in the way that we cover them in a way. so I think that there was the like the sort of the moral panicky type like coverage in the first like before twenty twenty where they were just like, look at this, you know, we've got to cancel them and deplatform them, whatever. And then that just actually emboldened that you know that sort of embolden their fan base more. And now I don't think we're really getting at the motivation of like why they exist. Like for instance, the coverage of Clavicular like and there's been amazing I mean like Joe Burns he did a greatiece about him in New York Times but Fundamentally what's driving sort of his popularity is this nihilism. It's these underlying issues. And instead of addressing any of the underlying issues that are leading people into these movements, we're blaming the internet or we're blaming this sort of like the downstream effects. or were saying, oh we' just log off, keep my kid off liight. It's like The problem is that your thirteen year old boy feels hopeless And the problem is that they have no positive role models. they feel so know disempowered with their future. And we need to fix those problems. instead of, you know yelling about some influencer in the kind of On the MAGA side of it, there's obviously recently been the whole thing with Tucker cows and Candaones, infuentas, all these people kind of deciding that Trump's no longer their boy. Yeah. Given the impact that they've had on the culture up until this point, what do you What do you think that is like the the stage one of in the next like Is there something more sinister within them deciding that MGA is no longer the movement that represents the audience that they hold? Yeah, I think that a lot of them are just smart about the fact that Trump is going to die and it's his second term and he's on the outs and the Iran war is really unpopular. And like these people, they get their power and their audience from being sort of against institutions and being really good readers of culture and kind of like tapping into things that they know the mainstream media won't talk about, whether that's Palestine, whether that's you know, a lot of different sort of like sort of foreign policy type stuff, especially And so I think that they've just like really effectively read the room, and now they're using that to capture an enormous audience And where they take that we'll see. I mean, they clearly again they need to be reckoned with, like this idea of like kind of Like you can't successfully deplatform Tucker Carlson at this point, right? Like So I think that we need to engage with these people in thoughtful ways and we need to also just like explain to the public like Like Tuck Carlson is full of shit. Like he supported the Iraq war like most famously. likeike he's not this like he got Trump to the White House. Trump was never not an imperialist. You know, that like they they're kind of cynical. Candace Owens is just like truly, I think, also just really leverage pop culture and storytelling to construct these like highly compelling like conspiracy narratives And that's that's people want that. People want to believe in all this stuff because they know the government is lying to them and so they want to they're going to find out, you know, s fall for this alternative. Nonsense You've got like green shoots of the the fight back against that now though, I suppose, right? where if it's Mandani in New York or like the kind of to proliferation of people like Hassan Piker into kind of mainstream discourse with magazines, newspapers tal. But look at the reaction to that. Look at how the liberals have gone like They are so I mean, you're seeing this in the California race right now where we have Styr who's obviously Is a law coming in to kind of regulate people like did I read that wrong? There was something about Hassan that was coming into legislation. They wanted to make yeah, they want to make a law in Congress likeemic. I mean, it's also just like the primary driver of a lot of backlash to that stuff is liberals. And it's liberals It's people that are Democrats. or not even people. it's like these it's institutionalists, Democrats that are aligned with corporate power that don't like it's very much kind of where the Republicans were when it was the Tea Party movement in the early twenty thousand ten s where like They were so establishments, so intertwined with corporations. You had people like Mitt Romney, you running for President twenty twel. And then you had the MAGA movement that was fundamentally an insurgent movement that was anti institutionalist, that was sort of an outside movement reactionary. And I don't think I'm not saying that sort of the leftists are reactionary in that way, but they are anti institutionalist And I think they're anti know, corporate they're sort of fighting back the liberals in the centrist army of this party, but the liberals are the ones that have all the power and influence. And even in California, you're seeing this with you know the different sort of governor candidates where you have Steyr, who's a billionaire, but he's a progressive and he's considered he called himself a class triter and he You know, verse Xavier Bakara, who is Bisera, I was mispronounce the name. Who was like HHS director under Biden, who is just like a corporate stooge who said that we should be grateful for Chevron. You know, we love Chevron. We love the oil and gas companies, we love corporate power. That's who all these, you know, centrist influencers are getting on board with and Do you think there's kind of a I mean, in Hassan's But like from what I know of Hassan his philosophy is that like the Democratic party is the vehicle for this sort of change in Whether it's culture, whether it's politics,. this pary, although it's not ours now, although it doesn't belong to the ideology of the left aggressive left it will be the thing that will change the values of the country, with people like Zora Mandani, the DSA becoming a big thing now. Do you think the democratic parody is the vehicle that there can be a cultural shift in America. It's not going to be the Republican Party. and they have a two party system. So I know a lot of people want to have a third party. I support their goals, but that fundamentally like The way that our government is set up, there are really only two viable parties So I think you know, I think also that you're seeing things like the Working Families Party come along where there's sort of like you can sort of vote Democrats sort of vote for the Working Families Party ticket and it'll go like, you know, sort of There's all these efforts to sort of push the Democrats to be a little bit more left, to be a little bit more relevant I think the Democratic Party has just gone so far right and they continue to lean so far right. I don't know How many elections they need to lose to sort of realize that this is a losing strategy But I agree with I agree that they should be the vehicle for change becausecause they're the only ones that are theoretically supposed to be against fascism or whatever, you know Is there an element that it's I don't think I don't think like the left is going to take over like the Republican Party it's not going to. No, sure, of course. Yeahah. But I guess that's the question, isn't it? Is it like a third way or is it the establishmented? I just think like like I don't, you know People fight about this all online and it's like with people that want to start the third party, I like I'm like I support like go for it. You know, I don't know that it's going to be successful, but like You're doing something, you're trying. Again, like I said, I support more like things like the Working famamilies partarty where they sort of exist to like push progressive candidates, but fundamentally like you're, you know helping the Democrats, I guess I think there's wasays I think that probably again, because of just the basic structure of our government, like We've had this two party system for Almost, you know, our entire c like it just I don't see it changing anytime soon But I support I support anybody that wants to do that. I just like I don't know how successful they'll be, but I don't want to like hate on, you know people that are trying to make the world better. Do think that like more broadly outside of politics with like people People emerging like Mandani, like Hassan, like in the UK, there's been Zach Polansky as well recently Although these are all political figures, there seems to be kind of like a pushback from the rightward shift in culture. and it's like manifested in this way in politics, but like I think particularly since Trump I, there's been like a consolidation of Right? ideals of the right being mainstream culture, if you look at things like The Sidney Sweeney Jeans ad or like people saying like people thinking it's okay to say the R word and all these kinds of things Politics seems to be shifting in a way that culture might follow, or What do you I want to believe that there's like going to be a more progressive culture. I think then We're so far gone. like I don't see I know everybody's like, wo two point zero like we're getting it. it's coming back. but then it's like it's so hard to kind of see it. like especially as somebody that makes content online, like Yeah, it's like Hassan's amazing loveove him, but That's one person Who's around him? Why are there not more of him because the entire internet is stacked against it. You know? And also Hassan came up like, when we like from he's from the earlier generation, like it's very hard to get try like to come out now and to build that now. like is almost imp I mean, it's so hard. So I think that again, the whole internet has been regulated in a way to cement the power of the right And the left is so disengaged on tech policy. that they're not doing anything to change that. In fact, they're often supporting laws that will deplatform them. You have They have this thing called the Creator Congress, theseese content creators that come together and they're like, we're going to lobby Capitol Hill to, you know, put more friendly policies in place. It's like But then they don't really get involved in any of the tech policy fights. And it's like, you know, they want to obliterate Section two hundred thirty. Do you think that you are gonna have a fucking platform if they obliterate Section two hundred thirty? No You're about to be censored off the internet So and so many of these leftist content creators are already, you know, they say the word palestine. They're down ranked, right? Like So they need to learn these lessons and they need to get on board and they need to learn about tech policy. But a lot of the left, especially in America, they mostly talk about foreign policy and imperialism, which is amazing. We should talk about the fact that we're bombing around for no reason, right? But they're not engaged in these fights that like ensure that people on the left even have a platform.. So tell me then like You are picking up the tech policy for dummies. What's the first chapter that weist should look at? First of all, don't listen to far right Christian fundamentalists who say we're cracking down on big tech They don't w want to crack down on bigig Tuck in the way that you think that you're cracking down on big tuck And I think that we need to also recognize that like We want a tech forward future, but we want technology built for people to serve the interests of the people, to serve the interests of workers. and we need tech policies that sort of reflect that. We don't necessarily want to go to this world where we just ban the internet or ban platforms or whatever. like we want to preserve civil liberties. we want privacy, we want Ive mean, Privacy like basic data privacy laws would be amazing. But I think it's like when we look at how we're regulating these platforms, are we targeting their business models Are we why was why was there pretty much no one on the left covering the big the two biggest antitrust cases against Google and meta last year? Why those should have been huge topics. And by the way, when we like lost them or you know what I mean? when when Google sort of was able to get why isn' there outrage around that? Why Why aren't people rallying right now to protect Section two hundred thirty, which they're trying to dismantle? You know, which again, is being led by the Heritage Foundation and morality and media These are things that leftists just are talking about, and instead, they do not engage on it. or they partner with, you know, they literally promote the Heritage Foundation I suppose as well, it's kind of the medium that you do, the discussion on these topics is on the platforms that these people own in the first place. Which makes it hard. Yeah. But they really don't talk about tax. And I know every reporter is like, my beat's the most important. Like technology is the most important beat. And I have one of my best friends is a climate journalist and she's like, they don't talk about climate. you know, there was some New York Times story this week of like, why Democrats should stop talking about climate, you know, And it's like So I understand like listen, not everybody has to cover everything. That's not the job of, you know, every influencer like has their own sort of set of topics. And I think Hassan has done an amazing job of covering Palestine and covering and he knows about censorship more than anyone But but we need like more people on left to kind of fight for this stuff and also like fight against laws that will allow the right to consolidate even more power. Like the TikTok ban was something that really was crazy to me because I covered that. You know, they had this big protest on Capitol Hill where all these TikTokers came together and they were protesting and they were trying to get all these leftist groups involved and say like, hey Like this is really bad. you know, this is going to lead to deplatforming of leftists They didn't none of the group showed up But it was also the thing, wasn't it when Everyone started to download Redbook and interact with Chinese people on a Chinese st own platform. that it then seemed, okay, well, we'll put it back, but we're gonna own it now. Yeah. So you can still have your sweets, but within the moderation that I decide that you. And now it's controlled by you know Ellison. Yeah ye I mean, it's also like the weird thing with China and the left too where it's like, I think theyre like China does a lot of amazing things, but We don't want China style internet regulation done by Donald Trump. Like China's internet is structurally so radically different. and a lot of left is are like, well, China, you know on China, you can't go on the internet for more than five hours a day. It's, first of all, your ion China is crazy. Pe in China are more brain rotted than anyone else but the internet. Like have you been on Chinaese interternet? Like it's crazy. But also like China's government is so different than American government. If you're taking Chinese style internet regulation and giving them again to Donald Trump That you're not going to have the same outcome. trust me. Like that government, those governments have radically different like goals I've just to the extent that my brain is brain rotted, I've just had a meme come into my head of MGa with Chinese characteristics that yet I don't think that would be a good thing. just to Close up, Taylor The In the last like as we said earlier on, I guess from like twenty fifteen to now, there's been this radical shift that We're not we're still fighting back from and there's still like a lot of catching up to do, whether it's on the left or in the center in a very reductive way. what do you think What do you think the moment on the internet? was it could be a video, it could be a discourse. defined the last decade of culture. Oh my god I think of the Elder Talk video from the Charlie Kirk shooting. Do you remember that? No Oh my Godd, this video It's like, So Charlie her gets shot And there's this guy and he's like a kind of like a local aspiring influencer, but he just puts the camera on his face and he's like yo, it's your boy, Elder talkk, Like they got shot. L it's just this video that it it looks like a Connor O'Mey sketch or something where it's like it's just, I think to me, it's so funny because it's like number one, it's a shooting on a school campus, which is the most American like that's All of these shootings continue to defivine our culture, maybe less here. but certainly like in America, and then also just like Is this like idea of like that the first thing that this guy does is like capture himself and his influence and like try to use it for like cloud online and. Yeah, it's like the, I guess detachment from reality that the kind of web three point zeros been the kind of the scare around the internet has always been well, you're not connected to reality anymore. And I guess things like that are. But can I say something like one thing that I really want people to know that like I feel like we didn't talk about is like all this stuff is a moral panic. Like this stuff about like the kids online safety shit This is moral panic. This is not based in reality. This is not based in data. In twenty twenty four, every single top researcher pretty much that studies children's social media use came together and issued this big report from Princeton, UNC, Duke, all these people and said, we are in the midst of a moral panic. Whatever you know, this idea that social media is causing widespread mental health issues with children is false. It is not based in reality. There is no data to support this. In fact, there's endless data debunking it peopleeople don't want to listen to that. They want to believe this like slop that they're being fed by like frankly, Christian fundamentalists And They don't want to fix the real problems. And these researchers like Canda Soogers, Alice Marwick, these amazing researchers that have dedicated their life to studying this topic have said, We know what's causing depression in young people. We know what's causing hopelessness. We know what's leading to this stuff. And we could fix these issues But instead we're not going do that We're going to pass the online safety Act. We're gonna pass all thisuff