Ben Whitelaw: 0:00

So I'm not sure that this is the perfect translation, Mike.

Mike Masnick: 0:03

Oh, no.

Ben Whitelaw: 0:05

Always a bad start to a podcast, isn't it? Um, but Shohan Xu's homepage prompt is mark my life. Okay. I will explain what Shohan Xu is in a little bit, but you know, I want you to mark your life to begin today's control of speech podcast, please.

Mike Masnick: 0:25

Oh, I am just going to say that, nothing in life seems to be making sense. And, uh, 2025 is already kicking off with quite a bang. And I sort of feel like if you had explained any of this to someone from five years ago, ten years ago, none of this would have made any sense. So, so I'm marking my life by believing that I am living in some sort of made up dream. How would you like to mark your life, Ben?

Ben Whitelaw: 0:57

I'm going to mark my life by, um, well, this podcast is, is a bit of that. I'd say this is every week we're marking our lives in, um, journey of online speech and content moderation, but I, you know, I'm marking my life by, signing up to Duolingo so I can learn Chinese and, uh, really understand what platforms, are we going to be using the next few years? Cause it's going to change a hell of a lot.

Mike Masnick: 1:22

Yes, yes,

Ben Whitelaw: 1:31

Hello and welcome to Control Alt Speech, your weekly roundup of the major stories about online speech, content moderation, and internet regulation. It's January the 16th, 2025, and this week's episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust and Safety Fund. This week we're talking about the likelihood of a TikTok ban, reaction to Meta's more speech, less mistakes announcement, and much, much more. My name is Ben Whitelaw. I'm the editor of everything in moderation. And I've got a very disenfranchised Mike Masnick with me. He's actually fresh off a rather epic writing, exercise. You know, you were just telling us before you came on, Mike, that you spent most of last night writing a giant post on Tector.

Mike Masnick: 2:16

yeah, it's been most of this week, to be honest, because I wrote, I wrote a post that was about 10, 000 words long, and then I realized, and I wasn't done with it. And I realized like, it was such a mess. And so I actually ended up deleting almost all of it starting again and finishing up last night and it's 7, 500 words. And by the time you hear this, it should be on tech dirt.

Ben Whitelaw: 2:40

We'll include a link in the show notes.

Mike Masnick: 2:41

yeah, just going into, it's really.

Ben Whitelaw: 2:45

It's all about Meta and Joe Rogan, isn't it?

Mike Masnick: 2:47

Yeah, because when we were recording last week, that was, seemed like the same time that Mark Zuckerberg had gone to Joe Rogan's ranch in, Texas and, recorded an epic three hour podcast, which came out, there were a bunch of storylines that came out of it. and, in just the first 15 minutes, there was a lot of related to things around like content moderation and stuff. and the storylines and the narratives that came out of it were just. Wrong, like blatantly wrong where for a variety of reasons and it takes a lot to explain and we don't have time for this. Why there's 7, 500 words on it on tech dude. But, um,

Ben Whitelaw: 3:23

So you were compelled basically to kind of debunk and kind of unpick some of the discussion in the first 15 minutes of that.

Mike Masnick: 3:30

as I say in the post, he, he doesn't want to fact check anymore, but that doesn't mean I can't fact check.

Ben Whitelaw: 3:36

And boy, did you. Okay. So, you're fresh off of that, um, epic and how's your week been otherwise? You, you if you come to terms with the announcement last week, have you,

Mike Masnick: 3:46

I,

Ben Whitelaw: 3:46

have you processed it?

Mike Masnick: 3:47

I can't come to terms with anything anymore, Ben. I'm in a state of suspended disbelief, uh, about everything that is happening in the world right now. Um, I don't quite recognize the world that we live in. and I'm not quite sure how to deal with that other than to apparently write 7, 500 word screeds on just 15 minutes of audio.

Ben Whitelaw: 4:11

yeah, you can write your way out of it. I think it's the only way. Yeah,

Mike Masnick: 4:17

hilarious because I've been, I don't know why I've suddenly picked up on it, but I've been listening to the, the Hamilton mixtape. I don't know, right. There was the play Hamilton, right. And, there was a mixtape that came out of where it had different songs and different versions, often with, you know, some hip hop stars. And there is a song called write my way out. Uh, which has literally been like, I've been playing that on repeat. This week and

Ben Whitelaw: 4:42

there we go.

Mike Masnick: 4:43

it's a riff on a line from an actual hamilton song but then a whole bunch of uh hip hop artists sort of take it and run with it and it has been on repeat so you saying that Is that is kind of where my mind is right

Ben Whitelaw: 4:58

Pretty accurate. I won't get you to, uh, to rap it or to, to sing it.

Mike Masnick: 5:02

no. You

Ben Whitelaw: 5:03

That would be bad. We've already, you know,

Mike Masnick: 5:05

It is, it is a very good song, I will say. I really, I really like it.

Ben Whitelaw: 5:09

Okay. I mean, to give you a sense of my state of mind, I, I went back to journaling this week after a period of, not, really committing my thoughts to paper before. So

Mike Masnick: 5:18

using an app or using like handwritten or what are

Ben Whitelaw: 5:21

I used to do handwritten. I had a kind of paper journal that I had by my bed and I kind of fell out of the habit last year and I'm using an app now. I'm going to try and speak into the app. I'm going to try and use voice notes to try and maybe make that easier. where those ideas or thoughts or innermost feelings end up. I don't necessarily know it's dangerous, dangerous in lots of ways, but I think it's a reaction to the start of 2025. He's like, I need to, I need to kind of process this a bit. there's a lot going on and there's, there's more to come.

Mike Masnick: 5:49

Yes. Yes. But I guess let's get on with our weekly therapy session that we broadcast for the world.

Ben Whitelaw: 5:55

Indeed, indeed. And before we do so, it's worth noting for listeners that we're actually recording, today's Controlled Alt Speech on Thursday, which is, a day earlier than usual. We're experimenting, with the days of the week that we record, partly as a way to kind of bring you guys, the listeners, the podcast in a more timely manner and bring it to you in, Before the weekend. And so don't necessarily have to listen over the weekend. We'll be playing around with this over the course of the next weeks and months. but if you have thoughts on, on when it comes out and whether it is better for you, whether it works for you more, drop us a line, podcast at controllable speech. com or find us on other well moderated platforms and drop us a message as well.

Mike Masnick: 6:34

Are there well moderated platforms?

Ben Whitelaw: 6:37

well, that's a good question. Let's get into it. this is ironic because, The fact that we are recording this podcast earlier than we do usually means that we don't yet have a decision from the Supreme Court on the TikTok ban. so this, you know, that's a good first week to be recording 24 hours earlier. Um, not. I thought, Mike, we could just talk about the oral arguments that you mentioned at the top of last week's episode.

Mike Masnick: 7:02

Yeah,

Ben Whitelaw: 7:03

And, unpack those a little bit for us, explain kind of where the, arguments ended up and then we can kind of talk about what's happened this week and where we think it's going because there's a lot of different permutations.

Mike Masnick: 7:14

yeah, there's really a lot of stuff that has happened and, you know, as we mentioned at the top of last week, like the oral arguments had sort of just finished, I think, when we started recording. And so I did a very sort of quick cursory review. I since listened to the oral arguments and I've read a bunch of the. thoughts of various experts and stuff. And the general sense is that it did not go well for TikTok. and the justices really did seem taken by the idea that, China is a threat and therefore you could ban ownership of an app in the U S. still think that's legally incorrect, but I'm not the Supreme Court, and they are, so they really do get to decide what is legally correct, even if I think they're wrong about things. and so we'll see where they come out, but it was definitely, there were a few people I saw who thought maybe there were, votes to stop the ban from going into place. There were critical questions. I mean, they did ask, critical questions at both sides. And generally speaking, my overall take is like reading tea leaves of the Supreme court oral arguments, is kind of a fool's errand. especially when there are critical questions asked of both sides, because often that means that the justices are sort of testing out arguments rather than revealing exactly where they are. the general exceptions are, um, that tend to be when all of the questions are heavily weighted towards one side, then you sort of have a pretty good sense of, where they're going. And so I would say that the questions, Asked in this, we're not all the way against Tik TOK, but we're maybe 80 percent of the way there. So that gives me a, you know, from sort of handicapping it, would lean towards. probably going to uphold the ban. the big wild card in this is as, as the big wild card in the world right now is Donald Trump. Uh, and he had filed an amicus brief and I should note. I think I mentioned this last week. I filed an amicus brief. That's right. I was working on it on Christmas. We mentioned that. so we filed one and, and oddly, Kathy Gellis, who, represents us and wrote a post about this. She wrote a post about our brief on TechDirt. And then she also wrote a post about the one area where my brief, the copia brief and the Trump brief agreed. Which,

Ben Whitelaw: 9:31

Tell us, where, where do you and Donald have, share similar

Mike Masnick: 9:35

uh, uh, There were a lot of briefs that went in, and I believe we were the only two that pointed out that the timing of this is ridiculous, that the fact that they are rushing through this when they could easily say, like, Pause this and we can do this in, good time. We don't have to enforce this right away. There was all this time you know, the idea that this was like an immediate emergency. If so, why did you give it 270 days to go into effect? there's no reason why we have to rush this over Christmas break and it's really unfair to getting like full arguments and full thoughts on the record. And we argued that and so did Trump.

Ben Whitelaw: 10:13

minds.

Mike Masnick: 10:14

We're the only ones. The Trump brief, though, does throw a wild card into this because he filed in support of neither party, which you can do. You always state like, you know, if you're filing in support of one party or neither party and, his wasn't in either party. And the brief is silly and ridiculous. And lots of people have made fun of it for good reason because it effectively as many Everything that Trump does. And certainly a lot of his legal filings do. It spends a lot of time sort of puffing up greatness of Donald Trump, talks about him as like one of the world's greatest deal makers of all time.

Ben Whitelaw: 10:47

Hold on. Are you not going to do a Donald Trump impersonation?

Mike Masnick: 10:50

no, no. You're more likely to get me to rap than to do a Donald Trump impersonation.

Ben Whitelaw: 10:56

Fair enough.

Mike Masnick: 10:58

But one of the greatest deal makers of all time, as well as a social media mogul who, you know, runs one of the most successful social media apps of all time, uh, and therefore. Yeah, yeah. Therefore, he is somehow uniquely placed to negotiate the perfect deal to save TikTok. And therefore, his only request of the Supreme Court is to put off the enforcement of the law until Donald Trump is in office. And he can cut the world's greatest deal to save social media and the youth today.

Ben Whitelaw: 11:34

which is interesting, right? Because you know, there's the kind of. U turn that Trump has gone on in terms of, in terms of how he feels about TikTok is, is worth noting there. He kind of glossed past that, but, he was the guy who, when he was in power wanted the ban to take

Mike Masnick: 11:49

yeah, he started this

Ben Whitelaw: 11:51

he started this all, we wouldn't be talking about it if it wasn't for him. And it was only in the course of the kind of I guess the election campaign at the end of last year where he somewhat changed his mind perhaps as a result of republican donor jeff. Yes. Also being a large shareholder in tiktok maybe bending his ear a little but he now sits on the side of of saving it doesn't he? And you know, he said this week holds a kind of special place in my heart and is you know being all kind of soft and fuzzy about it

Mike Masnick: 12:20

Yeah, and I mean he's also claimed that tiktok loves him And that it's why he won the youth vote by 34 percent or 36 percent depending on which interview you listen to Which is not true. He lost the youth vote. I think he lost it by about 10 percent so I don't know who You Which, knucklehead around him told him he won the youth vote, but he's, he's completely bought in. So he thinks TikTok saved him. So now he's got to save TikTok. I just saw that TikTok CEO is scheduled to be on the dais at the inauguration sitting there with Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos. And so.

Ben Whitelaw: 12:58

They're gonna need a bigger stage.

Mike Masnick: 13:00

It's, uh, who cares? I mean, like, so, you know, there's all this oddity going on where, he wants to say them and because of the way the Supreme Court works these days, it's not as automatic as people think. I mean, a lot of people are just like, well, the six conservative justices will just do what Trump wants. It's not really how it works, but there are a few justices that do seem to, you know, Follow what Trump wants. And you definitely have the sort of Thomas and Alito wing. And then some of the others are, can be swayed one way or the other. And so there is this wildcard where some people are like, yeah, you know, the argument sounded like they're fine with the arguments that the government made, but how many of them are going to think like, well, maybe there's an out and we can, Make donald trump happy and we'll just sort of come up with a way to delay it I don't know. I mean the answer is we're going to know very soon. hopefully After you listen to this podcast But it might not be uh We might be sounding very stupid right now because the supreme court may have already ruled by the time you're listening to this um

Ben Whitelaw: 14:02

Mike, if you had to kind of, make a guess on where it was gonna go, where the justices would kind of land, would you say right now based upon what you've read this

Mike Masnick: 14:10

I like I don't this is one of those ones where I don't have a really strong feeling to be honest with you because It could go in all different ways. I mean, I think, Alito and Thomas definitely feel like they're fine with the ban unless they do something to help Trump. John Roberts, who's the chief justice really seemed to, feel pretty strongly that there was no problems with the ban. he didn't really seem to. have any concerns about it from a First Amendment standpoint. the one that was a little bit not surprising to me, but, you know, I sort of hope maybe would go in a different direction was, Justice Kavanaugh. Because Kavanaugh, for all his problems, and he's got lots of problems, has tended to be really good on free speech First Amendment issues. Like, surprisingly good, pretty regularly. And he really seemed to lean in on like the, well, you know, China bad national security, arguments, which, it's not that I don't find them convincing. I just, there hasn't been really evidence supported. This is one of the other weird things that came up a few points, which is that there is. Secret redacted evidence that has been filed that the Supreme Court justices have access to, but others don't. And so at one point, they asked TikTok's representative a question and the TikTok lawyer was like, well, guys have seen that information and I haven't.

Ben Whitelaw: 15:27

Oh. Is that common?

Mike Masnick: 15:30

I mean, in national security cases that will come up at times. It's not like, precedent setting and weird, but, it does happen. but it's certainly not like a super common kind of thing. and so, there, there's some oddity there. I don't know. I mean, so then the other odd part of this is that you have, beyond Trump saying that he can save it. people are like, you know, because the ban technically goes into effect on Sunday and Trump is inaugurated on Monday. There's like, can they just ignore it for a day and see what happens? There's talk that Trump is trying to work out like an executive order that he'll issue as soon as he's into office that nobody's exactly sure what he'll say, but it's basically designed to try and give them more time because he seems to think that executive orders can like overrule Congress. You know, it might be something that's basically like, don't do anything. you know, what he could do is just tell the justice department not to enforce it, which may or may not work because the real enforcement is, you know, by Apple and Google and whether they block TikTok in the app store. And they might just do it. and then what? And TikTok is talked about shutting down its own servers as well. And so they might just do that. So it's a little bit unclear how that all plays out. And then there's this whole other element that has come up, which is like, you know what's happened on the app with users of the app this week

Ben Whitelaw: 16:49

Yeah. I mean,

Mike Masnick: 16:50

Do you want to talk through that a little bit

Ben Whitelaw: 16:52

yeah, I mean, you know, this is where my intro comes in and, and again, forgive my potential butchering of the pronunciation, but a lot of TikTok users this week have moved to Shouhanshu, which is a Chinese equivalent app, video app used a lot by, uh, young, often female Chinese netizens. there's a lot of fashion content on there, a lot of travel content, and if you go onto the kind of site, as we did when we were preparing, today's podcast, you know, everything's quite kind of, it's a lot of, women, you know, with handbags and stuff, you know, it's kind of very.

Mike Masnick: 17:26

said it's it's maybe closer to like a Pinterest or maybe an Instagram than a tick tock, but it is a and the translation it's it's called red note. or some people have said, I don't know if this is exactly true, that the translation is more like little red book, which has some particular connotations with regards to China.

Ben Whitelaw: 17:43

Yes, yeah, but has a very specific set of, as a lot of Chinese apps, very specific set of speech rules and, um, moderation practices. Yeah, very, very kind of explicit. So, banning mentions of Chinese government, as all, you know, Chinese, websites and apps do that fall under the regime there. but you have this influx of. TikTok users into this app and are really American TikTok users and a really interesting kind of cultural Coming together. I think it's fair to say right, you know, a lot of people who are calling themselves TikTok refugees obviously that's kind of slightly unhelpful term to be using with what's going on around the world, but you know, um people saying, you know Saying goodbye to their Chinese spy, which is how they're referring to, to TikTok, bidding an emotional farewell to their, their fans and followers on platform and essentially setting up shop on, Shouhanshu. And I'm wondering, Mike, like what, what effect do you think this shift is having and the, and the press coverage that that has got on the potential justices and their decision is, is that likely to sway anything at this late stage?

Mike Masnick: 18:50

don't think it impacts the justices. I think where it has had an impact is on political discussion about it. And I think that, that story has gone pretty viral, but the fact that all these users, I, and I don't even know really how many it is. but even like the memes, you mentioned the, the goodbye to my Chinese spy, like if you go on Tik TOK and you look at, there's like, there's Tons and tons of posts of people, saying goodbye to my Chinese spy and like lovingly, you know, sending it off and sort of all of this feels like mocking and spite, and like, I don't think that a lot of the people who are moving to this app are doing so with the intention of actually using the app long term. It is entirely about mocking the effort by the U S government to ban This and mocking the whole setup and sort of the paternalistic aspect of it. And it's being done out of spite. And it sort of sent this message into the, political realm of like, You guys think you're protecting us, but like, screw you. Like, we don't, we don't want you protecting us this way and we don't trust you. and, you know, I mean, if, if there's one thing that has become clear over the last couple of years is that people don't trust the political class, right. And this is just like another version of that in a sort of hilariously obnoxious way, and you see things like. You know, Senator Mark Warner, who was one of the leaders who pushed the TikTok ban in the first place, and has always been sort of very aggressive on these kinds of issues, posting this thing where he was like, I'm aware of you know, our children, adopting these kind of Chinese apps, and I'm very concerned about and we'll be investigating it. And everyone's just like, fuck you, like, you know, like, what, what is wrong with you? Like, do you not get it? Like, we don't trust you anymore. You haven't done anything to like, prove that you're trustworthy. And so we're going to go mess around and we're just doing this to like, get a laugh out of you and mock you. And in fact, like, the other things that are worth noting beyond the fact that, You know, red notice is so, has very strict rules and is clearly based more based in China, but it is believed to be much more closely tied, like for all the concerns of tick tock and bike dance being aligned or controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, red note is like, there's no questions about it. Like everyone's just like, yeah, it's, an app that is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. But on top of that, there are these elements where people are going on there and there, there is this cultural exchange between people in China and America and some of that is really interesting and some people are sort of like, Oh, Those people on the other side that we've been taught to demonize are actually human. and we can talk to them and share pictures of our grocery stores and, and whatnot. Now there is an element of total propaganda that is coming out of this. And some of that, again, like it's, it's tough to tell which things people actually believe, which things are people just having fun with it. Because some of them, you see these Americans going like, Oh, I was taught to hate the Chinese and believe that they're evil and that the country is terrible and all the stuff And yet they're showing me pictures of their grocery stores, which look like my grocery store except the vegetables are much cheaper or whatever and there's definitely an element of propaganda being pushed there I don't know how much you know americans who are buying into it actually believe that or are just kind of saying like You hey, politicians, you're going to tell me China is evil. I'm going to mock you by showing you that I can communicate with people in China. I don't think that's like a long term impact. But it is kind of funny where, for all the concern, You know, one of the big concerns that comes up all the time with, tick tock is like, Oh, well, you know, they could push propaganda and manipulate the algorithm and make people like China and hate the U S and all this kind of stuff. And I keep pointing out, like there have been multiple studies that. one came out in, I think, October of last year that said the U. S. feelings towards China are at an all time low. They're at record lows. Like if they were using TikTok to manipulate people in terms of like favorable views of China, it's not working. And yet now because the app is being banned and everyone's joining this app and communicating with people in China and seeing things in China and then are going around saying like, Oh, China's not so bad. It's like. Everything about this just seems to like at a cultural level be backfiring.

Ben Whitelaw: 23:10

Yeah, and if, if seen in the context of the inauguration as well, in which obviously you have ByteDance CEO joining the inauguration, but also, Trump has reached out to Xi Jinping and, he will be sending one of his kind of like highest party, kind of, uh, henchmen, according to reports this week, then, there's a kind of additional significance to that shift as well, right? You know, it's not to say that we should be trying to. I don't know if this makes sense of John or Trump's diplomatic gestures, but you have a situation where clearly something happening when it comes to the kind of us Chinese relationship and users are almost waiting with their feet in terms of where they spend their time and where they, broadcast their speech.

Mike Masnick: 23:52

Yeah. And, you know, I mean, it'll be interesting to say, because again, yeah, with the Donald Trump stuff, I mean, you know, we spent four years where we were being told that like, the Bidens were controlled by China. This is like a key message on the, the MAGA, right. Was that, you know, China had total control over the Bidens and had bribed them and blah, blah, blah, and all this kind of nonsense. And yet now suddenly like, Trump takes over and we're seeing like a thawing in a relationship like none of this makes sense at any, realistic level. But, I do think, there are a few elements here. I mean, the other thing that I think is noteworthy is how this actually all of this. Plays into China's narrative of what they want, right? So for years, China has banned foreign apps in China. everyone knows about like the Great Firewall of China and all of this. And, they've always defended is like, well, you know, we have to protect our national security and the the well being of our populace and all this kind of stuff. And, historically the U. S. has always pushed back on that and talked about freedoms and openness and all this kind of stuff. And now what happens? As soon as there's a semi popular app that is connected to China, we go in the exact opposite direction and we implement what is effectively a great firewall for the U. S. to ban a Chinese app.

Ben Whitelaw: 25:06

Yep.

Mike Masnick: 25:07

users are just like rejecting that and saying, no, but like the message that China gets out of this and that they will use because they always do is well, look, you know, welcome to the party America. You finally realized that the right way, if you don't feel that an app is safe is to ban it and to crack down on internet speech. And so we've just handed that to them. And I think users in America are like, We don't really like this. And so you see like politicians starting to scramble. And so, I mean, there was a report that just came out last night. I don't know. It feels sort of somewhat weakly sourced that even the Biden administration is looking for like a last minute reprieve in case the Supreme court rules the way it very well might and saying, TikTok can be banned, that they might do something to not shut down the app, which is hilarious because they were in court. A week ago arguing that we can shut down the app to then say, like, you know, there's got to be some way that we can save it. You have in Congress, you have, some senators and some members of the House of Representatives offering a bill to extend the, deadline by 270 days that's being pushed by a group that has always been somewhat critical of the bill the same group, as ed markey Ron wyden ran paul and in the house rokhana They had all been somewhat critical though. I will note ed markey voted for the ban, but that was For political reasons was bundled in with funding for Ukraine and other stuff. Um,

Ben Whitelaw: 26:31

hmm.

Mike Masnick: 26:31

but they had been saying all along, like we rushed into it. They filed a brief in the Supreme court saying like, Hey, we don't agree with this ban. We don't think it's right. and so now they're trying to extend it as well. So it's like you have people in Congress, you have the two presidents who wanted the ban and supported the ban, all trying to like, try and save it, and you have all these kids being like, screw you, we don't like this. And it's such a, I mean, it's fascinating on a variety of levels. It just feels like this was a whole big thing that was done very badly.

Ben Whitelaw: 27:04

Yeah, and it feels unprecedented, right? You know, we don't have, we don't have a, prior for this, and, and that's what it feels like. I think that's, that's the confusion and, and the kind of like the swirling nature of the media reports this week have really shown that, you know, there is, there's no precedent. We don't know what's going to happen. And the only people who can really clarify that are, are the Supreme Justices and, you know, the next 24 hours we'll, we'll probably. No more.

Mike Masnick: 27:31

But the thing is, like, may go beyond that because of the political fighting over this. Like, we really don't know, like, Supreme Court does may not matter, which makes it all even crazier.

Ben Whitelaw: 27:42

But it's good for control or speech because we'll be back here next week talking about it all over again

Mike Masnick: 27:47

But we'll see, you know, we'll see if we can get a Chinese translator to help us translate and reach our new listeners in the

Ben Whitelaw: 27:57

Indeed

Mike Masnick: 27:58

of China.

Ben Whitelaw: 27:59

indeed i'll be uh posting a clip of the podcast to My new show, Hanshu Podcast, uh, account that I've set up.

Mike Masnick: 28:06

There you go.

Ben Whitelaw: 28:07

Um, talking of China, talking of somebody who would like to be in China, and who mentioned, the fact that he wasn't currently in China, is Mark Zuckerberg and Meta.

Mike Masnick: 28:16

Oh, yes, that guy.

Ben Whitelaw: 28:18

that guy, uh, who we talked at length about last week. we are on week two of the big, uh, announcement where he came out and said that he was going to Reduce the amount of mistakes on the platform and increase the amount of speech And we went into depth last week about how he planned to do that This week mike. I thought we're going to talk a bit about the reaction to that announcement because in all of these stories You know week two is often more interesting for the fact that you have, you know, some of the big stakeholders and, kind of groups and bodies, reacting to, an announcement like that. And we saw that this week, we saw a whole range of people, put out press releases and announcements. So I thought I'd just do kind of bit of a roundup of those different groups, to help kind of frame the discussion it's worth saying that I think overall people's response was. That they were taking kind of watching brief on what was happening. there was some kind of negative reaction to the kind of dismantling of the fact checking network. And, um, I spoke to Alexios Manzalis, who's the director of security, trust and safety at Cornell tech, who's. In fact checking and who has worked in trust and safety and I, I did a piece on EIM about that. so the fact checking community and, and journalists who do fact checking were kind of critical of that part. But I think the other interesting groups are, met zone staff who went through. I guess a very quick update on to what was going on. They, a lot of them didn't know what was going on at all. we had the regulators respond to what was going on too. We had individual governments, who obviously have links to Facebook and you have, public policy relationships with them. And then there was advertisers as well. So I'll just give you a bit of a flavor of, of those four groups. I think MetaZone staff. it's fair to say we're probably the most surprised in some senses and for good reason So just after we recorded last week, was reported by platformer and others That the fake matters was getting rid of

Mike Masnick: 30:16

Mm hmm.

Ben Whitelaw: 30:17

program their diversity equity and inclusion program and the Head of that program was being moved into a role called Accessibility and Engagement, which sounds like kind of corporate bullshit. And that was followed by another announcement by Zuckerberg later in the week that he was getting rid of 5 percent of all staff as part of a kind of efficiency Effort to kind of improve performance across the whole company. And, those two things in itself and the kind of reaction that we saw, I think suggests that, people in the company are not happy, but they probably don't have a lot of. Choice. You know, there's, you know, their jobs are their jobs, and, we know the job situation in the US and particularly in tech. And so it felt like there was, certainly from the reporting from tech publishers, that there was some consternation about it, but actually people coming having to stay put and having to kind of get on with it. Casey Newton at Platformer reported that senior leaders were actually mostly towing the line in terms of that. did you kind of expect a larger, before we get into the other groups, did you expect a larger reaction from Meta employees than that? Or is it, do you think it's consistent with what we've seen in, in the past?

Mike Masnick: 31:25

I don't know. I mean, I, I think it may be too early to say what's really going on. Um, I've definitely heard of people within Meta who are now very strongly looking for new work in other places. Uh, I may have had some friends send me resumes to see if I could pass them around there. I think people. We're taken aback by it. I mean, there, there was reporting that this was very much driven by Zuckerberg. There was not much coordination with much of other people in the company. So the fact that there are senior leaders who sort of, toed the line and, and started spreading the corporate message, like, I think that's. What you do as a vice president level person, when you're suddenly told like, this is the new direction, you sort of suck it up and you, do that, you know, unless you're willing to quit on the spot and, That's tough for a lot of people for a lot of reasons. And so I think a lot of people are like, okay, well, I will try and spin this bullshit into something that I can sell, for now, and I'm going to refresh my resume and start looking around

Ben Whitelaw: 32:31

They weren't, they weren't applying for a job at Control Alt Speech were they?

Mike Masnick: 32:34

no, no.

Ben Whitelaw: 32:37

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Mike Masnick: 32:40

it's, an interesting moment. And I think, you know, there was other reporting about from internal message boards where people were seem pretty. angry about it. And in fact, now that they've really backed free speech, over at Meta, it was reported that internal complaints were being deleted by Meta management because, you know, free speech only goes so far when you're in the kingdom of Zuck. Uh, and so, there were a bunch of other things. I mean, and I sort of said this last week, but like, yeah. the policy changes for all the talk about how it was about supporting free speech and stuff, the reality is it wasn't. there were policy positions you could take that were supporting free speech, and these were not that. These were policy positions creating carve outs for specific hateful speech. And employees notice that they're not stupid. and so some people were really mad where it's just like, this is, you know, one of the stories that came out also that relates to this was like the removal of you could have like flags denoting things and like messenger and stuff. I don't really use messenger, so I don't fully understand how that works. They said they removed the like trans flag, which is like, that's, That's not about free speech. That is deliberately trying to increase hatred, and so I think a lot of employees are pretty upset about it. And I'm sure there's some, I'm sure there are plenty who support this, right? I mean, there are people who believe that this is the way to go, and I'm sure that those people exist within Meta and are excited. But I think there are a lot of people who are upset, and I think that will have impact. I will note the other story on the. internal employees that I do think is interesting because this is the one that was clearly stated in the video and the announcement, this whole idea of like moving trust and safety folks from California to Texas, because California is all 100 percent biased and Texas is purely 100 percent neutral as, as we all know, you know, and we learned a little bit more about that this week, including as we already knew. Meta already has a whole bunch of trust and safety people in Texas, like a very large group of them. And there was a report which, who had this report?

Ben Whitelaw: 34:50

Wired, I think it was Wired who said that there wasn't going to be,

Mike Masnick: 34:53

Right. So, so there, well, there were two reports. the Guardian had a report that said a lot of the moderating staff was already in Texas. And then Wired had a report saying that there's basically nobody who has to move from California to Texas. there were a bunch of like the important policy writing groups and trust and safety groups that are in California that are exempted from this, which, Basically, this was all for show and, and even like the people who are in Texas, for the most part, they're in Austin, which is sort of the tech hub of Texas, but is also very liberal, right? Like as, that is sort of like the blue spot in the middle of Texas. and so all of this was clearly for show and the idea that oh, these woke California employees are going to have to move to, unwoke Texas. It seems like that was all a lie purely public consumption.

Ben Whitelaw: 35:46

right, which is what we discussed in last week's podcast you know, which others, Kate Klonick and others have said before. So that's interesting to see play out. And so I think you're right in saying that, you know, probably employees are taking a watching brief as to what happens and what opportunities are available elsewhere before they make their move as a result. what we saw this week was some initial consternation and then probably a, you know, taking stock, other groups that are also taking a watching brief include regulators and governments. again, we touched on this last week with some initial reporting coming out of France in particular. there was a FT piece this week that said that actually the EU were, and this was, pretty well sourced, reassessing the investigations. Under both the Digital Services Act and its sibling, the Digital Markets Act, um, which are, looking at both Google, Apple, and Meta, big kind of, focus on meta there is around personalized ads. And so, the EU is going after metaphor, um, under the DMA for kind of excessively personalized ads. the report kind of lays out how across the whole of the commission, there's, been a bit of an edict to take a pause on. What's going on? And unlike the, uh, the comments last week around energetically pushing through uh, some of the investigations, you know, it seems like there's been a taking stock again, a sense of like seeing how this plays out, seeing probably post Trump inauguration, what state of play is, and then kind of moving forward with that. interestingly, you know, you have alongside the EU, you also have Ofcom, playing it pretty straight with, some comments to the media that they were having to assess any risk of any changes, of the announcement. And then also the eSafety Commission in Australia, not really giving much of a reaction or comment at all. So again, people kind of taking pause, not really saying a lot. And I think kind of going see how it, how it escalates. Is that

Mike Masnick: 37:43

Yeah. Well, there's also Brazil, right? And Brazil went pretty hard it sort of suggested, and obviously, you know, we had the whole story with Brazil banning X entirely for a period of time. and so they came out pretty strong about these changes and were like, we need answers in terms of how you're going to handle certain kinds of information. And so we're sort of seeing it across the map. And, you know, the related thing, and we did talk about this a little bit last week, but there's been a little bit more, is that Zuckerberg sort of seems to view this move as one where he's expecting Donald Trump to stand up to anyone who does this. I mean, he talked about this on the Rogan podcast that, I didn't even get into this in my 7, 500 words,

Ben Whitelaw: 38:24

He didn't make it past 15 minutes.

Mike Masnick: 38:26

Yeah, yeah, but he went into a whole discussion about how, like, I believe technology is the shining industry in America and in any other country, would see regulations as a kind of tariff and they would defend their, home industry. And so I believe that Donald Trump is going to do that now and start pushing back on these laws and these regulators and other countries that are coming after us just because they're jealous of the American tech industry. this is, you know, one of those frustrating things, but there's like, there are some elements of truth. Right. And I criticize a lot of foreign regulations on social media, some of which do seem to be driven by these are big American companies. We can pass these laws in order to get a, tax out of them. But Zuckerberg is really leaning into the idea that now that he's completely, started supporting Trump, that Trump is going to now try and fight back against these. So there is this political element of it that we're going to see what happens and, does it lead to trade wars over these issues? Uh, so, you know, what they say is interesting, but how, the Trump administration reacts is also going to play into this and we're really entering uncharted territory in how these things start to play out.

Ben Whitelaw: 39:39

indeed. I think make a good point around the kind of distinction between the politicians and potentially the regulators in this because I saw a bit of a distinction this week where, and I know, you might argue that in the EU, they're all the one and the same Mike, but, um, um, it seemed to me this week that the regulators kind of staying stum, you know, there was this kind of, we're not going to say anything, we're not really going to do very much. The governments tended to be a bit more on the front foot. so Peter Carl, the UK's technology minister, was on a big politics show on Sunday, and he was pretty kind of forthright about how, this is an American announcement for American service users, which, again, is not entirely true because it is only really the fact checking element that was, US specific. You know, some of the policy changes will, be effective much more broadly. The, And, like you mentioned the Brazilian Solicitor General was pretty forthright. France put out a statement saying that they were concerned. Those are kind of words that you wouldn't necessarily hear from a regulator, but a kind of politician might be more. whether it's, trying to play out in the media or to kind of win votes and praise, be a bit more forthright. So it's interesting to see those, that slight distinction as well, in the reaction to it. But yeah, it's all unprecedented. It's, all, again, the theme of the podcast, something we've not seen before. And, um, I want to come to the kind of final group of reactants to. The meta announcement mic, which is advertisers and I'm really interested in this group because obviously, you know Facebook have essentially, made some of these changes as part of a corporate strategy. you know, we talked a bit about that last week to maintain lots of reasons the platform's scale and spark size and to kind of fight off some of the regulators In different markets that zuckerberg has indicated that he he's not happy with This week advertising bosses in the UK with some reporting around whether they're being quite nervous about the announcements and, keeping tabs on whether this is going to see an increase in harmful content on the platform, because obviously that would affect how happy they were to spend and to see their adverts against potentially egregious content. did you have a sense from reading around like whether this was going to be defining factor? Aspects of how this announcement would play out. Like, are we, are we going to see, I think it's like about pay attention to how advertisers respond in the way that Musk did.

Mike Masnick: 41:59

I mean, it's always an important element of this. And we had discussed this when, Elon first took over Twitter. This was, you know, a big point of discussion, which is that, you know, The advertisers drive this way more than so many other things do. Everyone sort of assumes that, you know, Oh, it's like the government or this, or, you know, it's like often the advertisers, because they're the ones who pay the bills, in the case of X, it's been weird because. the advertisers fled and Musk didn't seem to know how to deal with that and has lashed out in various ways, including suing some of the advertisers, but also telling them to go fuck themselves. So, you know, that part is a little bit weird. the main difference between what happened with X and. Meta is that the most part, advertisers say that that advertising on Instagram and Facebook is somewhat effective. That was never really the case with Twitter. people generally said, well, you know, we'll do some stuff there, but it was never like, oh, you know, we're hitting all our goals because of Twitter ads. That's not necessarily true for meta and, meta properties. And so that'll be the really interesting question where the rubber meets the road is, does this have an impact on advertisers? Because if they do start to bail, like that, is pretty serious. Like the company has gone through some ups and downs over the last few years. you know, users abandoning Facebook, certainly, you know, Instagram has been growing very well. it's a concern. And if advertisers start to follow, you know, some of this may depend on like, well, what happens when these new policies are put in place? Does it really lead to, Zuckerberg is insisting it's going to lead to a better experience, which will mean users will spend more time.

Ben Whitelaw: 43:35

Yeah.

Mike Masnick: 43:36

But a lot of people think it's going to lead to a much worse experience, in which case users might start to abandon the platform, just as we've seen a lot of users abandoned X. And so You know, if that happens, then advertisers might say, well, maybe this isn't such a good deal anymore. We're not reaching the same size audience that we were reaching before. And so maybe it's not worth doing, especially at the same time that they're really leaning into, like, we're going to have AI elements and AI content where it's like, you're going to have more and more inauthentic behavior, which is not helpful to advertisers either. But I, I think, you know, the bottom line. And this is always the bottom line with advertisers. It's like, well, which things are going to make them money and which things are not. And so, none of the advertisers, some of them maybe, but most of the advertisers are not taking a stance on like the actual moral implications of this. They're not saying, well, we're going to move away because this is morally If they move away is because it's bad for our brand and there's like the brand safety aspects of it and it's not effective anymore and it's creating problems because of the audience that's there or the content that we're advertising on and that creates other, downstream problems. if the platforms continue to perform on an advertising level, I think the advertisers will stay, except you might have a few of them, you know, sort of speak up. You know, I had a story this week, this is not an advertiser, but Mark Lemley, who's a very, very famous, cyber law, scholar and lawyer, who was representing Meta in one of their AI cases, announced publicly that he had fired them as a client. And this is like, this is one of the biggest names in law, you know, on the list of big names, he's way up there. And he was helping with The lawsuit around, people saying that they were scraping content for their A. I. And he left the team that was doing it and made a public announcement about it and literally called out Zuckerberg for embracing neo Nazis. and toxic masculinity. so there are some people and some companies who I think you know, may say, like this is just totally against our values. But the larger issue is going to be like, well, do our ads perform?

Ben Whitelaw: 45:33

Yeah, and I, I can, to be honest, I fully expect. Facebook to continue to see advertising grow and revenue grow. And I do not expect there to be any significant dents on this. I was thinking about Cambridge Analytica and how, you know, in the aftermath of what was, a huge reputational scandal, how they continued to see, you know, monthly active users go up. They, barely deterred advertisers at all. Well, revenue went up a significant amount and I know, I know they're not the same,

Mike Masnick: 46:02

I will say like, I think those were difference in, in significantly differences in kind of scandals. Um, and I, my argument has always been that like the Cambridge Analytica scandal itself has been really sort of blown out of proportion in the media in terms of what it actually was and what it actually meant. And I think a lot of users realized that it was not as, as damning as a lot of people in the media wanted it to appear as. Yeah. Whereas this change I think could be more damning if users recognize it. And that's, that's the other question. It's like, how much of this is just us who pay attention to this stuff versus everyday users who don't and won't even know that this is happening.

Ben Whitelaw: 46:39

Yeah, we can't get into it now, Mike, but the idea that Brexit may have happened as a result of Cambridge Analytica may suggest that it's bigger for some people than it is others. But that's for another day.

Mike Masnick: 46:50

Yeah, that's, that's a different argument, but yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ben Whitelaw: 46:53

Um, okay. so in kind of summary, just on that meta story. All of those groups to some extent taking on a watching brief and seeing how things pan out. And, you know, again, I think we'll return to this story and report on how that impact is being felt. a lot of people, seeing how it goes. Um, we've got a few interesting stories left to cover my, we, we don't have a lot of time. So, do a couple of the really kind of fun ones that we spotted this week. Cause, you you know, there's a bit of lightheartedness amongst all the dreary state of social media world. where do you want to start? Do you want to start with, your Brad Pitt scammer?

Mike Masnick: 47:26

Yeah. It's such a great story. You know, we talk about scams all the time and pig butchering and all this stuff and we've covered it. And this is a story that is kind of like that, that has an AI component to it. It was a story that was originally put on, French TV of this woman who thought she was conversing with Brad Pitt. Apparently thought that Brad Pitt's mother reached out to her first

Ben Whitelaw: 47:50

For 18 months?

Mike Masnick: 47:51

for a very long time.

Ben Whitelaw: 47:53

long time, yeah.

Mike Masnick: 47:54

sort of thought that she was in a relationship with Brad Pitt, and there's an AI component in which whoever the scammer was, was sending pictures of himself, often in, in hospital garb, uh, apparently, you know, I forget if there was like, he needed, uh, surgery, and it was cancer treatment, and he claimed that because of his, well publicized ongoing divorce issues with Angelina Jolie that his money was tied up. And so he started asking for money and she eventually gave 850, 000 effectively, to him. And there are all these like crazy AI pictures of Brad Pitt in a hospital gown, that she believed. And she finally, admitted and she spoke about it on TV. And it's, it is kind of funny, but these are the kinds of things that happen, and the scammers are really good at getting you to believe stuff, and then the related story is that then the woman was getting mocked and attacked, and in fact, the TV station pulled down the, the story, because it turned into a whole bunch of people were mocking her, which, you understand where the instinct comes from? Because the story sounds so silly and ridiculous, but the scammers are really good. And I think that it's unfortunate when the end result is that we start mocking the victims, these is truly a victim, of this kind of situation.

Ben Whitelaw: 49:10

exactly. And, you know, she wasn't that old. You know, you think about scammers happening to people in their eighties and nineties on phones, giving credit card details. She was 53. You know, she said she didn't have a great kind of I. T. literacy, but, you know, she did have kind of some mental health issues and depression. It's reported in the piece and yeah, the, the reaction to this is, a shame because I think everyone is going to know somebody like this. in the next few years, as these scams

Mike Masnick: 49:35

Yeah. Or

Ben Whitelaw: 49:35

much more pervasive.

Mike Masnick: 49:37

fact is everyone is susceptible to scams. Like no matter if you think, you know, I am susceptible to scams, you're susceptible to scams. happens and you can be more sophisticated than others. You might catch some stuff, but the scammers are good. They do this professionally and they're going to be better at it than you. and I think we do need to get to a point where there shouldn't be shame in saying that you got scammed because we need more people to know about these scams. And the only way you're going to do that is people are willing to talk about it. And so I fear that this leads people not willing to talk about it.

Ben Whitelaw: 50:03

Yeah, indeed. along a similar lines, I guess, of educating the public about different issues inadvertently. You'll understand my link in a second. But, this other story from 404 Media is fascinating as well. have a kind of porn actress publishing STEM videos. on Pornhub, for a kind of wider audience. Interesting. And, and she just worked quite well out of it. You know, the advertising rates are better than on YouTube and elsewhere. but she's had, she's kind of come unstuck.

Mike Masnick: 50:34

Yeah. So this is, this is interesting. There's always been, apparently, on Pornhub, a series of safe for work videos, often educational videos. And some people do it just because it's kind of fun, but also like apparently the advertising rates pay well. And so this, woman who does pay well. adult film work and has only fans and has been successful there has not saved for work videos that are on Pornhub also, creates, educational videos often, ones around STEM stuff. So, about machine learning and AI and

Ben Whitelaw: 51:05

What is a neural network and

Mike Masnick: 51:07

exactly.

Ben Whitelaw: 51:07

stuff I could really do with.

Mike Masnick: 51:09

You like serious stuff. And she had written blog post recently, which she put on LinkedIn and then mentioned on other social media about how Pornhub's ad rates were actually much better that her content on Pornhub was basically making a thousand dollars per million views, whereas on YouTube, they were making 340. So. Really interesting comparison and the fact that how the payouts work. And so she wrote up a whole thing on LinkedIn. it got a bunch of extra attention because also this week there was a Supreme Court hearing on age verification in the free speech coalition versus Paxton case, which we won't get into now. We'll, I'm sure we'll talk about it when the ruling comes out later this year. But, you know, at one point, Justice Alito sort of commented on whether or not Pornhub is like Playboy and doesn't have, you know, safe for work articles from the likes of Gore Vidal and, and William F. Buckley Jr. And people sort of laughed at that. Yes. and people sort of laughed at that, but then people were like, no, but there, there actually is some safe for work content. And this, woman had just posted the thing, but the, where the story got really interesting was that LinkedIn, Banned her for posting this story about how she made more money on Pornhub than on youtube

Ben Whitelaw: 52:20

and then apparently because the picture that she used wasn't of her was the reason she got given which It clearly is

Mike Masnick: 52:26

it it is And so it feels like a content moderation mistake, which we all know happens and is a thing that exists and yet you know, it's just another one of these stories and you do wonder again, like Is it because she mentioned porn, she mentioned Pornhub, is it because the picture of her teaching these videos, it's, it is safe for work, but it's perhaps more risque than, your standard person teaching about neural networks. Um,

Ben Whitelaw: 52:55

hard to hard to say

Mike Masnick: 52:57

yeah.

Ben Whitelaw: 52:57

it's a question, you know, if you're thinking about moving from tiktok because you know, you're the rappers about to be banned Consider, the ramifications of moving to linkedin because your content may be taken down with Also, you know not a lot of notice. Um, so warning for everyone really there but yeah a couple of really fun stories to wrap up there mike. thanks for bringing us those and for kind of taking us through all of today's stories and the TikTok Supreme Court story is one we'll come back to next week. I'm sure there'll be more meta stuff the coming weeks too. And that brings us basically to the end of today's episode. we've done all we can to make sense of the chaos that has ensued over the last seven days or six days now that we're recording on Thursdays. Um, yeah, get in touch listeners. If you enjoyed today's episode. Find us, online, get in touch with us, uh, podcast at control. org speech, and we look forward to hearing from you and seeing you next week. Thanks very much. Take care.

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