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Buckley Institute | The Twitter Files: The Censorship Industrial Complex with Matt Taibbi — Transcript

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0:01foreign
0:05good afternoon everyone my name is Ryan
0:08gavsky and I'm the student president of
0:10the William F Buffy Junior program
0:12it's my great pleasure to welcome you
0:14all to this afternoon's lecture on the
0:16Twitter files with Matt taibi
0:18before we begin the event I'd like to
0:20say a few words about the Buckley
0:21program and introduce Our Guest
0:24the William F Buckley Junior program is
0:26the flagship program of the Buckley
0:27Institute an organization dedicated to
0:30promoting intellectual diversity and
0:32open political discussion at Yale
0:34we've hosted lectures dinner seminars
0:37Firing Line debates and an annual
0:39conference each year since 2011.
0:42our over 600 Buckley fellows hold a wide
0:45range of political beliefs but they all
0:47Stand United against the formation of a
0:49liberal-only echo chamber on campus
0:52by providing Yale students with the
0:54Forum to engage meaningfully with
0:55serious conservative thought the Buckley
0:57program has become an institution on
0:59Yale's campus and a symbol for a more
1:01open and more representative political
1:03atmosphere
1:05especially at a university where the
1:07mission is the creation and cultivation
1:08of new knowledge Buckley fellows believe
1:10that all perspectives must be heard and
1:12examined in good faith
1:15you can learn more about the program and
1:17how to become a fellow on our website at
1:19buckleyinstitute.com
1:21now for our guests
1:23Matt taibi is the author of 11 books
1:25four of his books including griptopia an
1:28insane clown president our New York
1:30Times bestsellers
1:32he is the publisher of the newsletter TK
1:34news and the co-host of the podcast
1:36useful idiots
1:38he won national magazine award for his
1:40writing for Rolling Stone and broke the
1:42news of the Twitter files an
1:44investigative series
1:45please Welcome Matt taibi
1:49[Applause]
1:56hi thank you all for uh coming
2:00um
2:00if those of you have phones may know
2:02that about five minutes ago we dropped
2:06to more Twitter files threads so that's
2:08one of the reasons I was a little late
2:10getting here today we were hectically
2:12trying to put that together but um
2:15so there should be some new news to talk
2:17about
2:18uh
2:19so my name is mataibi
2:22um I'm been a reporter for three decades
2:24and much of that time
2:26was spent in the former Soviet Union and
2:28then later at Rolling Stone magazine
2:30I've written a number of books on
2:33subjects ranging from police brutality
2:36to presidential campaigning to the media
2:39and High Finance a couple of books about
2:42the response to the 2008 financial
2:44crisis
2:45currently I'm the editor of uh
2:47Independent News said on Sub sub stack
2:50and lately have achieved
2:53I guess significantly in increased
2:56Renown or notoriety or infamy I'm not
2:59sure what you would call it depending on
3:01your point of view for having covered
3:04the Twitter files and um if you had told
3:07me even 10 years ago that I would
3:09someday be speaking to the William F
3:11Buckley Institute uh at Yale
3:14I would have asked you for a hit of what
3:16you're smoking
3:18um but you know what I'm all for it I'm
3:20really very glad to be here and I'm so
3:23um so glad and so honored that you that
3:25you invited me to speak I think in in
3:28these very interesting times there have
3:31been a lot of strange political bet
3:33fellows that have been made and we have
3:35to take advantage of those relationships
3:38[Applause]
3:45um
3:46I grew up what you might call A Classic
3:48ACLU liberal my parents divorce when I
3:51was young and in my teen years my mother
3:53decided to study for the bar
3:57which gave me the opportunity as a
3:59teenager to help her prepare for the
4:01lsats and in those years I really fell
4:05in love with the Core Concepts of
4:07American law the whole the ideas of due
4:10process the right to face one's accuser
4:13the right to Discovery the right to
4:15trial of your peers freedom of the press
4:17all those things
4:19and even at that age you know most of my
4:21heroes I was already thinking about
4:23writing so most of my heroes were
4:25writers but one of them wasn't
4:27um and the one who was not was Ira
4:29Glasser who was the head of the ACLU uh
4:33Ira was the longtime executive director
4:35there and he was most famous
4:38for being the person who led the defense
4:42of neo-nazis to march in Skokie Illinois
4:44and we can come back to that decision in
4:47a moment
4:48but um one striking fact about uh mighty
4:52Ira as he came to be called was that um
4:55his most famous political adversary was
4:58also a friend of his William F Buckley
5:01and in development that I think uh
5:04foretold some odd curves to the Ark of
5:07History
5:08IRA and Buckley eventually became close
5:12in a very interesting way though they
5:15never really agreed politically about
5:18very much each was very committed to the
5:21larger concept
5:23of improving Society through honest
5:26intellectual debate and the generosity
5:29of spirit that's required when people
5:32who disagree decide to get to know one
5:35another
5:36when Mr Buckley died Ira wrote an
5:39article about their friendship that I
5:41remember to this day and I've always
5:43thought it was very touching and I want
5:45to quote a little bit from it here
5:46because I think it's relevant today in
5:49this passage
5:51Glasser is talking about the issue of
5:53flag burning which they debated on
5:56Buckley show Firing Line
5:58and so here's I were talking he said we
6:00call it symbolic speech the idea that
6:03the flag symbolized American
6:04constitutional freedoms including the
6:07right to denounce it superimpose it with
6:09doves but then
6:11symbol of peace or even burn it to
6:14communicate the notion that American
6:16ideal is ideals were going up in smoke
6:19others including Buckley disagreed and
6:21called it flag desecration as if the
6:23flag literally was sacred and its use in
6:26such protest Blasphemous one of our
6:29Firing Line debates on that subject was
6:31on that subject near the end of the
6:33debate
6:33frustrated I thought at the time by the
6:37array of arguments against this position
6:39Buckley played the majoritarian card he
6:42said the the Constitution may protect
6:45this expressive conduct as you say but
6:49he told me the ordinary American just
6:51can't stomach the sight of someone
6:52burning an American flag and is entitled
6:55to have to pass laws Banning it at that
6:59juncture uh glass Glacier said I closed
7:02the debate by a grinning and asserting
7:04that William F Buckley who was he said a
7:07Scion of a wealthy family and had no
7:09contact with ordinary Americans no idea
7:11what they thought or what they thought
7:13of it
7:14there's a bunch of insults in there he
7:16goes on
7:18to essentially invite Buckley to lunch
7:21at Nathan's in Coney Island
7:23uh instead of the elegant and expensive
7:26Manhattan restaurants where he had taken
7:28me if he wanted to get a glimpse of
7:30ordinary Americans
7:31and this is an important part I think
7:34never one to shy away from a provocation
7:37or challenge especially on National
7:40Television he took me up on it and a few
7:42a few weeks later off we went
7:45now Glasser obviously played up the
7:48seeming comedy of taking William F
7:50Buckley on the subway for a hot dog and
7:52a ball game and there was maybe a little
7:55Edge to those descriptions that was a
7:57little unnecessary but the end result
7:58mattered I think as he put it
8:02to paraphrase what Humphrey Bogart said
8:05to Claude Rains in Casablanca this was
8:07the beating of our beautiful friendship
8:10he went on to talk about how the two
8:12friendship between the two had seemed
8:14out of question
8:15because they came from totally different
8:18backgrounds and argued about virtually
8:20every issue often heatedly often with
8:24sincere anger and seemed to disagree
8:27just about everything
8:28but one day Glasser writes I came across
8:31a column in which Buckley had described
8:33drug prohibition as a Folly and a
8:36leading cause of preventable crime
8:39he went on never before having found an
8:42issue on which we agreed I immediately
8:44wrote him telling him that we might be
8:46equally surprised to know that the ACLU
8:49which missed no opportunity to denounce
8:51and criticize had taken that very same
8:54position for many years
8:56I propose that we do something together
8:58to advance our common position
9:02and he said that if we did it might
9:05astonish our enemies and Amaze our
9:07friends
9:08and the passage ends with Buckley
9:10inviting Glasser to lunch but not to
9:13Nathan's
9:14and the strategy ends up working you
9:17know he says opposition to drug
9:18prohibition
9:20which was mistakenly seen as a left-only
9:23issue
9:24became a kind of free spirit residue of
9:28Youth you know culture of the 60s issue
9:30it was liberated from that Niche
9:32understanding and broadened and
9:36eventually this became the first of a
9:38series of issues where there was some
9:40agreement between two sides that had
9:43been fundamentally opposed today you
9:46know support for Universal drug
9:48prohibition has significantly eroded in
9:52large part I think because these two
9:54people stayed true to their respective
9:57principles but maintained enough
9:59intellectual respect to act together
10:03when they found an area of agreement but
10:06the important part of the story for me
10:08was not so much that they found a
10:10political issue to agree about
10:13um
10:13but that each first had to show a belief
10:18and a commitment to some basic
10:20Enlightenment Enlightenment principles
10:22like the idea
10:24that honest debate and courageous
10:27intellectual exchange lead to progress
10:30in the Skokie episode they diverged over
10:33how far one may carry that idea but I
10:37think if both were here today they'd
10:39probably be closer to agreement on that
10:40issue
10:42we're in another moment where people who
10:45may be of opposite political Persuasions
10:48might once again need to unite around a
10:51larger principle
10:52the Trump years I think have brought
10:55around about a political sea change
10:58many of the people who claim to be
11:00committed to Ira Glass are liberals like
11:02myself have not gone over to a new
11:05more Machiavellian more pessimistic
11:08vision of politics
11:10that stresses the need to enhance and
11:12consolidate Elite authority to stop
11:15populist contagion in many ways it's
11:18sort of the inverse of the 60s Paradigm
11:20under which Glasser and Buckley first
11:24met
11:26now I've told the um the story of the
11:28Twitter file so many times now that I'll
11:31spare you the wrote version of this but
11:33just to sketch out the basics I was
11:36invited obviously by the new ownership
11:39of
11:40Twitter to look through the internal
11:43files of a major American corporation
11:46this never happens because of the unique
11:50uh nature of these kinds of social media
11:53companies not only did we get a a very
11:57intimate view into a very powerful
12:00company but because Twitter itself
12:03reached into so many different places
12:04and touched so many people we got to
12:07look at a lot of other things as well
12:08that was I think unique at least in the
12:12recent annals of Journalism uh
12:16and at first you know one of the First
12:18episodes
12:20was fairly Limited in scope they wanted
12:23me well actually they didn't want me I
12:24we settled on the idea that we would
12:27look at the episode in which the New
12:31York Post expose about the hunter Biden
12:33laptop story was
12:35throttled down by Twitter and by
12:38Facebook
12:39my idea in looking at that story was not
12:42because I particularly cared so much
12:44about Hunter Biden or his laptop
12:47but because I was interested in the
12:49question of whether or not the FBI or
12:53the DHS or any of those organizations
12:55had been in contact with
12:58um
12:59a company like Twitter and I thought
13:01this if that if that relationship
13:03existed that this would be where we
13:05might see it
13:06as it turned out you know that first
13:09batch of Twitter files didn't actually
13:12reveal that Arrangement
13:15but it did reveal a bunch of other
13:17things and it garnered a whole bunch of
13:18public interest and there was a a feel
13:23about it that was really interesting
13:26because
13:27mainstream media for so long has been so
13:30uniform in the way it presents issues
13:34really almost every product that you see
13:37in mainstream in the mainstream press
13:39CBS NBC ABC the New York Times
13:43Washington Post the product is more or
13:45less identical they're all really
13:47gunning for the same audience using the
13:49same techniques
13:51and the idea of presenting uh
13:54information that is different from
13:57somebody else's information is kind of
14:00an anathema to the way that this system
14:03of news works and so the Twitter files
14:07which were had intense public interest
14:09but went completely uncovered by all
14:11those news organizations they had the
14:14feel of something forbidden like sami's
14:17dot I'm old enough to have gone to
14:19college and the Soviet Union believe it
14:21or not and I I still remember how people
14:25passed around sort of hand copied
14:28you know textbooks and
14:32novels and other things like that and
14:34this felt a little bit like that it was
14:36released uh in sort of Guerrilla fashion
14:39and gained
14:41um
14:42traffic in the same way that sami's diet
14:47materials did
14:49but still that first release really
14:52didn't um tell us a whole lot among
14:54other things because we subsequently
14:55found out that the former
14:57general counsel of the FBI was the
15:00deputy general counsel of Twitter and
15:02was helping sift through that initial
15:04batch
15:06once he was removed from the company the
15:09the term that Elon Musk used was he was
15:11exited from the company
15:13um we got much Fuller broader access to
15:17all of these communications and
15:21it was about a week into the project
15:24we were looking at the
15:27um the issue of how Twitter came to
15:29decide to ban Donald Trump again not
15:32because any of us particularly cared so
15:35much about the partisan political angle
15:39on this but because we were thought
15:41there would be intense historical
15:43interests in how how did they come to
15:45this decision and this had been reported
15:48partially in places like the Washington
15:49Post but we had a a method of looking
15:53through the slack chats that would be
15:55much more direct and it would be
15:59probably we thought very revealing
16:02in the process of looking at
16:06all of the run-up to the decision of uh
16:11to ban Donald Trump and to remove him
16:13from the platform we had to look at a
16:15lot of communications
16:17involving content moderation decisions
16:20in the run-up to the 2020 election and
16:25we would see slack chats I started
16:28missing slack chats that would say
16:30things like flagged by the FBI
16:33or forwarded by DHS and I remember the
16:38first time
16:40that I saw in one of those notations
16:42uh the first time I thought I saw that I
16:45thought well that's interesting that's
16:46this this is going to be our big story
16:48for the entire uh Twitter files is this
16:51one email where where we get the word
16:53FBI on it and then when I started to see
16:56it more and more and more then I started
16:59to have another thought
17:01which was this project is temporary
17:04as soon as we started to see the depth
17:07of the involvement of the security
17:10agencies all of us knew that this was
17:14not going to go on for very much longer
17:15that sooner or later pressure would be
17:18brought to bear at least that was our
17:20guess we hoped not but and we were told
17:24that the company was firmly behind the
17:27idea of continuing to release these
17:30files and I think they were sincere
17:32about that
17:33but we figured that sooner or later this
17:36would come to an end so we started to
17:37prioritize
17:40getting as much information as we
17:42possibly could about the topics that we
17:45thought were most important
17:48um so that we would have a chance to
17:50report something consequential before
17:52the door was closed
17:54and
17:55just to recap quickly what some of those
17:58early decisions were what some of those
18:00earlier reports ended up involving
18:03I think the main there were a couple of
18:06main things that came out of the first
18:10month of reporting on the Twitter files
18:12and I was joined by reporters like Barry
18:15Weiss
18:16um who is a long time reporter for the
18:19New York Times now has her own outfit on
18:22substack as well
18:24Michael schellenberger
18:26who has his own
18:29independent site
18:31called the public
18:33we were all Independents that was
18:35actually an intentional decision by musk
18:39I think he was trying to make a point in
18:41a number of directions number one
18:43because he felt the corporate media was
18:45untrustworthy
18:47and number two because he thought that
18:49the public wouldn't believe anything
18:51that was said if it came
18:53from The New York Times or Washington
18:55Post so all of us were Independents even
18:58though I have a lengthy history as a
19:00kind of mainstream credentialed reporter
19:03I was sort of out of the tent and that
19:06was one of the reasons that that I was
19:08chosen so
19:10there were a whole bunch of us in this
19:12room the first thing that we found out
19:15um I think the the first significant
19:17report had to do with
19:21Shadow Banning what they call visibility
19:24filtering at Twitter if you go back and
19:28look you'll see in 2018
19:31Twitter actually released a
19:34a blog post I I think it was called
19:37setting the record straight about Shadow
19:39Banning and it said something along the
19:42lines of people often ask
19:44do we Shadow ban we do not that's how it
19:47starts and then it goes on to kind of
19:49say in other words that yes they do
19:52Shadow band but they never actually use
19:53the term
19:54well
19:56um we found out pretty early on that not
19:59only do they Shadow then but they have
20:01this unbelievably extensive
20:04toolbox that they can apply that
20:08basically gives this company and pretty
20:10much every other social media company
20:12the ability to amplify any individual
20:16voice all the way up to scene by
20:18everybody and all the way down to not
20:21seen by anybody even by people who are
20:23searching specifically for that name
20:27they showed us Pages where we could see
20:30um bright notations that would say
20:33things like Trends Blacklist or search
20:35Blacklist
20:36so they actually had multiple different
20:38categories of things that they actually
20:41called blacklists and we got pictures of
20:43that and put it on the internet and
20:46remember before the Twitter files
20:48happened
20:49there had never been open confirmation
20:51that this took place everybody knew it
20:55took place but this was the first time
20:58that you could actually see it and point
20:59to it and it was a really I thought a
21:03groundbreaking thing that Barry did that
21:05was her report
21:06but the next thing after that
21:10the thing that really took most of our
21:11attention for the for most of December
21:13and
21:14January was outlining the relationship
21:18of the federal government to
21:21to Twitter and we found out that they
21:24not only occasionally heard from
21:27bodies like the FBI or the DHS but that
21:31it was a constant ongoing relationship
21:36that there was a defined route of
21:39communication
21:41it was essentially a two-lane Highway
21:44any moderation requests that came from
21:47any of the 50 states or from state
21:49governments they went through the
21:51Department of Homeland Security
21:53and anything that came from any federal
21:56government agency
21:57would pass through
21:59what the FBI called the belly button of
22:02the U.S government which was themselves
22:04so DHS handled the states the belly
22:08button the FBI handled the federal
22:11government requests and all those
22:14requests passed through
22:16a portal they use the device a thing
22:19called teleporter
22:21and this was all managed by a special
22:23government Department called the fitf
22:26the foreign influence task force which
22:29has 80 agents detailed to it believe it
22:32or not these are people who are
22:34basically just scanning the web looking
22:37for potential terms of uh service
22:39violations
22:41and it's comprised of people not just
22:44from the FBI and from DHS
22:46but also from other agencies including
22:49the office of Director of National
22:51Intelligence so you have
22:53you have State uh enforcement you have
22:56domestic Homeland Security
22:59Law Enforcement you have the FBI which
23:03is
23:04counterintelligence and sort of federal
23:06policing and then you have the
23:08intelligence Services which also had a
23:10hand in this and not only was there this
23:13system that was established firmly by uh
23:18by the election in 2020
23:22there was also what they called a
23:24regular industry meeting
23:26and we would see these amazing
23:29minutes that were passed around here are
23:33the minutes for next week's industry
23:35meeting and there would be an email and
23:37it would have you know 58 or you know 70
23:40respondents and it would be from
23:42companies the names in the list would be
23:45from companies like Pinterest and Google
23:47and Facebook and Wikipedia and then all
23:51kinds of strange obscure smaller tech
23:53companies and they would all be
23:55regularly meeting
23:57with not only the FBI and the DHS but
24:02there would also
24:03more often than you'd expect there would
24:06be a briefing by what they called oga
24:08which is other government agencies which
24:11is a euphemism usually for intelligence
24:14Services very often the CIA
24:17so this was a regular thing
24:20and this raised all kinds of questions
24:23not only about speech and about the
24:26First Amendment
24:28but about antitrust issues here were you
24:32know this enormous group of companies
24:34that were apparently getting together
24:36and having secret covenants and codicils
24:40about speech and coming to agreements
24:42that the public didn't know about with
24:46intelligence agencies enforcement
24:48agencies and what did that mean exactly
24:52but it took a good two months to dig out
24:56through all these emails how the system
24:58worked and a lot of phone calls a lot of
25:01confirmation
25:03and we um
25:06when we finally felt solid about that we
25:09started to look around
25:11for other issues and it was then that we
25:16started to realize that this was a
25:19a problem that was
25:21bigger than a First Amendment issue it
25:24was bigger than an antitrust issue
25:27you know the communications that Twitter
25:29was receiving
25:31and just from the FBI for instance they
25:34would get spreadsheets full of account
25:38names with letters saying we assessed
25:41that the following are connected to
25:44Russia's internet research agency and
25:47you may according to your own soul
25:50discretion decide that these are
25:52violations of your term of cert terms of
25:54service
25:55is that the government telling Twitter
25:57to take these accounts down
26:00you know technically maybe not I don't
26:02know but when we looked to see what
26:04happened to those accounts we found that
26:06a lot of them
26:07very often were suspended right
26:10afterwards that there's some kind of
26:12correlation to this activity
26:14but not only were they getting these big
26:17batches of requests from
26:20the FBI from
26:23the Department of Homeland Security
26:26from this agency that most of us had
26:28never heard of before are called the
26:30global engagement Center how many people
26:32have ever heard of the global engagement
26:33Center
26:34almost nobody right so this is a
26:38um a body that was created in Barack
26:40Obama's last year
26:43uh it's technically housed within the
26:46state department but it's not truly a
26:48state department agency it's a
26:50multi-agency task force that
26:53initially was founded with people from
26:56the Pentagon from Socom stratcom DARPA I
27:01mean I talked to a bunch of these people
27:02uh
27:04and I'm very much sort of one of the one
27:07of these non-conspiratorial reporters I
27:09hate conspiracy theories but you start
27:12to see these emails and it has all these
27:15agencies represented
27:17and the gec starts to appear everywhere
27:19in these um in Communications with
27:22Twitter and they're sending reports
27:24about
27:25all the multiple varieties of of groups
27:29that they considered foreign threat
27:31actors
27:32but apart from that apart from the
27:34Direct Communications they were getting
27:36not just from the FBI and DHS and gec
27:39and all these other agencies HHS
27:42treasury
27:43um you know the Department of
27:46Transportation in one case uh there were
27:49also there was also this huge Galaxy of
27:52other organizations
27:54that called themselves
27:57anti-disinformation Outlets
28:00and these basically were quasi-private
28:04or quasi-public
28:06organizations that were also basically
28:09in the list in the business of making
28:10lists of
28:12people they consider to be too offensive
28:14to be
28:16represented on the internet
28:18there there was a center called the
28:21center for countering digital hate they
28:25were very very aggressive and they for
28:28instance compiled a list of people they
28:30called the disinformation Dozen about
28:33covid and they sent their list to all 50
28:37Attorneys General
28:40um and then to Twitter and then they
28:42would send these lists to the news media
28:44and we started to see this pattern where
28:48Civil Society organizations the news
28:52media tech companies and enforcement
28:55agencies were all basically
28:57communicating and on the same page about
29:01this movement to um
29:05to censor and modify speech if one of
29:09these centers didn't have luck the first
29:11time getting Twitter to take an account
29:13down
29:14they would send their list to The
29:16Washington Post or the financial times
29:18or the New York Times
29:20the newspaper would then call up Twitter
29:23Twitter would then know they were on
29:25notice that they had 24 or 48 hours to
29:29take down these accounts or they would
29:30have negative press about how they
29:32weren't doing enough to stop
29:35whether it was Russian interference or
29:38coveted misinformation or whatever it
29:40was
29:41but if they still didn't act these
29:44centers would sometimes forward their
29:46lists on to an enforcement agency like
29:48the FBI and the FBI would send that same
29:51list onto Twitter at which point usually
29:54they got the message and eventually
29:56these accounts came down
29:58now why does this matter
30:02because I think it represented
30:05a new style of politics and this is at
30:08the point of the story where I I started
30:10to think that
30:13um these stories were going to be harder
30:16to explain to ordinary audiences than
30:18just well the FBI is talking to Twitter
30:22or Twitter blocked you know the hunter
30:25Biden laptop story and why did they do
30:27that this was a bigger conceptual story
30:30about a kind of a sea change and how
30:33powerful institutions viewed politics
30:37and their relationship to each other and
30:41to the public
30:43um
30:44this was I think triggered by
30:47you know sort of the relationship
30:49the rise of Donald Trump and it who I
30:52think birthed a new brand of paranoid
30:55politics and response where these once
30:57liberalizing institutions like the press
30:59and the ngos
31:01stopped acting as checks against each
31:03other and were encouraged to absorb into
31:06a larger whole
31:08creating a single kind of cartel-like
31:12organization
31:14to act against the contagion of mass
31:18movements one of my um colleagues one of
31:21the people who writes for my site Andrew
31:23lowenthal
31:24he used to work for a civil society
31:26organization called engage media
31:28and he made the very interesting
31:30observation as he was going through the
31:32Twitter files that there were constant
31:34references
31:36to speech and political ideas using the
31:38terminology of disease so you would
31:42often read about things like infodemics
31:44or information pollution pollution or
31:48contagion or information disorder
31:51because
31:52increasingly these groups saw themselves
31:55as the pure whole surrounded by the
31:58contagion of populist movements or
32:03anti-democratic governments abroad or or
32:06foreign interference or anti-vaxxers or
32:09whatever it was it was the the group
32:12inside inside the tent surrounded
32:16by a whole series of out groups who had
32:19to be de-amplified
32:21and surrounded by the disease of
32:23political of these dangerous political
32:26ideas
32:27they discarded the old adversarial idea
32:30in favor of banding together
32:33and there's a reporter for the guardian
32:35named Luke Harding uh who he's an
32:39interesting character in himself but he
32:40laid out this idea very explicitly a few
32:43years ago in a review
32:45of a book about bellingcat which is for
32:48those of you don't know it's kind of the
32:50establishment facsimile for Wikileaks
32:53it's a leak site but what they do is
32:54they leak permitted things
32:57to further a narrative that the
33:00government likes as opposed to one that
33:01they're horrified by which is what
33:04Wikileaks is all about and here is a
33:06passage that um
33:08that Harding wrote about bellingcat
33:12and Elliot Higgins its founder Higgins
33:15he wrote thinks traditional news outlets
33:17need to establish their own open source
33:19investigation teams or miss out he's
33:22right
33:23several have done so the New York Times
33:25has recruited ex billing cat staff
33:26Higgins approves of this in his view
33:29rivalry between media titles is a thing
33:32of the past the future is collaboration
33:35the hunt for evidence a shared Endeavor
33:38the truth out there if we wish to
33:41discover it
33:42now he makes it sound very cheery but
33:44the Rivalry of media titles
33:47is the primary if not only regulatory
33:50mechanism in in the news media
33:53without news organizations keeping each
33:57other honest uh you know titles like the
34:01New York Times The Washington Post CNN
34:03and MSNBC they no longer have any
34:06incentive to correct errors
34:08so things like the Hamilton 68 Fiasco
34:11which we reported on the Twitter files
34:13or some of the Trump Russia stories or
34:16Bounty gate or even the stuff about 100
34:18by the laptop
34:20you don't have to correct them if none
34:22of the people in the cartel decide to
34:25think on each other if you never have to
34:27face your critics you can just Embrace a
34:30mistake endlessly and that was something
34:33that was not true even 10 years ago
34:36uh what else does this shared Endeavor
34:38look like
34:40um well for instance with uh they can
34:43change their minds about what they see
34:46is true or what has always been true at
34:50the drop of a hat uh for instance
34:53they're yeah I was very shocked when I
34:56looked at emails from
34:58Stanford's virality project which was
35:01this
35:02big organization that was dedicated to
35:05policing misinformation about the
35:07pandemic
35:08and they had sent a letter to Twitter
35:10suggesting that you know you should
35:12consider as standard misinformation on
35:15your platform
35:17stories of true vaccine side effects or
35:20true stories that may promote hesitancy
35:24uh because their concept was even if a
35:28story is true
35:30if the idea behind it is to encourage
35:33people not to get the vaccine well then
35:36we don't want that so it's politically
35:38untrue even if it's technically or
35:41factually true
35:43so they probably felt that pretty pretty
35:46honestly for a while
35:48but um
35:50they can decide on the drop of a hat
35:52that what they thought yesterday is no
35:54longer true
35:55so we just two days ago saw an NBC news
35:58report titled
36:00possible links between coveted shots and
36:02tinnitus emerge
36:03now previously it might have been
36:05thought that a story like that would be
36:08considered disinformation or
36:09misinformation or
36:11Mal information which is their euphemism
36:13for things that are true but
36:14inconvenient and that would have been
36:16dialed down or deamplified
36:18but now suddenly it seems that even like
36:21sort of big corporate media has decided
36:23that
36:25they're allowed to report on these
36:26things and what does that mean and it
36:28puts people
36:29you know from the point of view of a
36:31media consumer as somebody who's been in
36:33the media for a long time
36:35yeah I think of how the audience looks
36:37at this and to me they're now looking at
36:39the news the same way that
36:42um the Soviets that I knew when I was a
36:44student looked at Soviet media they're
36:47reading between the lines they're trying
36:49to figure out what these messages mean
36:50why why was it not okay yesterday to
36:53talk about this but it is okay today
36:55does that mean they've discovered a new
36:58danger is this danger more real than the
37:01previous one it's very unsettling for
37:03people to not be in on what the
37:07discussion is and that's really what
37:09this thing that we ended up calling the
37:12censorship industrial complex is about
37:14it's about creating a two-tiered
37:17system where there are a group of
37:20Institutions that should be sort of
37:24policing each other but instead they've
37:26banded together and they have become The
37:30Gatekeepers for information they're
37:31telling they're deciding collectively
37:34uh in secret
37:36what gets to be seen more and what
37:39what's going to be seen less
37:41and
37:43they're
37:45amassing an ever increasing amount of
37:48out groups who are just not privy to the
37:51real information
37:53and
37:55you know why is this important
37:57you know I think in a democracy
38:02you need to have what um one colleague
38:05of mine calls
38:07Dynamic tension between all these
38:09liberalizing institutions in order for
38:11that for democracy to work
38:13the media has to act as a check on
38:15government government has to be separate
38:17from industry industry has to be
38:21separate from Civil Society institutions
38:23Civil Society institutions can't be
38:26meeting too much with uncivil
38:29institutions it was a big shock for
38:32um you know my my colleague Andrew
38:34lowenthal
38:36having worked at a civil society
38:37institution to see that there were ngos
38:41that five years ago would have called
38:43themselves Civil Society institutions
38:45meeting for election table top exercises
38:49with people from the Pentagon and the
38:52West Point in West Point
38:55um you know as he put it to me the Civil
38:57means civil society means not the
38:59military they're not supposed to be
39:01meeting with one another
39:03another example of this is you know we
39:05found an email that we just put out
39:06today
39:07where a bunch of journalists very high
39:10rankings high profile journalists
39:12attended another tabletop exercise in
39:14the summer of 2020
39:16that foretold
39:18a story about the leak of information
39:22a hacking leak and
39:24operation involving Hunter Biden and
39:27barisma
39:28and a few weeks later or I think it was
39:31a month later that story actually
39:33happened
39:34now as a journalist the minute that
39:37story actually happens the existence of
39:40that tabletop exercise becomes news and
39:44you have to find a way to report it
39:46um now I when I reached out to all these
39:49reporters who included people from The
39:50New York Times even the editor of my old
39:53magazine Rolling Stone was there
39:57why didn't you write about this tabletop
39:58exercise they didn't answer you know the
40:02the answer probably was because we've
40:04we've seen a lot of these conferences
40:07were where the reporters granted off the
40:09Record privileges to the participants
40:11and probably it was off the Record but
40:14what does that mean why are journalists
40:16going to these
40:18um to these conferences full of military
40:20and law enforcement people and giving
40:26them off the Record privileges over and
40:27over again unless they see themselves
40:30and really not as journalists anymore
40:32but more as participants and I think
40:34that's what's happening
40:35so
40:36you know democracy really requires that
40:40tension between all these groups but
40:43these groups don't see themselves as
40:46having any kind of separateness anymore
40:48they're interchangeable they move back
40:49and forth between each other's worlds
40:52effortlessly there are CIA agents who
40:55move straight from Langley to Twitter
40:58Twitter people go straight from Twitter
41:00to ngos the NGO people go straight from
41:04there back to Langley then there are FBI
41:06agents to go to work for MSNBC and it's
41:09all one big club and they all hang out
41:11with each with each other and it's very
41:15much like the model of the old
41:17military-industrial complex which is why
41:19my colleague Michael schellenberger gave
41:22it that name
41:23but I don't think this model works I
41:26think
41:27uh you know there was appropriate
41:30tension between people like Ira Glasser
41:33and and William F Buckley they saw
41:35themselves as having different ideas but
41:38the same principle
41:41um uh and there were citizens who
41:45maintained separateness but a commitment
41:48to a larger good and here what we're
41:52seeing is the opposite we're seeing this
41:55idea where a group of people
41:58are insisting on
42:01homogene
42:02homogeneous political concept where
42:06everybody is sort of on board about
42:09what the boundaries of acceptable
42:11thought are
42:12and their
42:15um increasingly leaving everybody else
42:17out of the tent and I think you know the
42:20the Glasser
42:23Buckley's story had a happy ending but
42:25if something isn't done about this
42:28concentration of power this
42:30quote-unquote shared Endeavor
42:32this generation's version of the same
42:34thing won't have a happy ending anyway
42:37thank you so much for for being being
42:40here today and I'm sorry I'm
42:42disorganized because of the reports that
42:44came out today but I'd be love to answer
42:46any questions that you have
42:49[Applause]
43:02this work oh perfect so we have time for
43:04a few questions would anyone like to get
43:06us started
43:08or
43:12Matt uh your perspective uh is
43:15fascinating having been inside and uh
43:18sort of outside the tent and weren't you
43:20involved in the debate in Canada
43:23yeah
43:25about the objectivity of U.S press and
43:29I'm interested in any uh
43:32personal experiences you may have had uh
43:36that that shed light on how the Press
43:38has transformed into what you're
43:41describing now and also by the way a
43:43side effect love your dad Street Smart
43:45reporting and I'm sure he's proud as
43:47heck of you thank you so much yeah you
43:49know my my father was a television
43:51reporter uh were you are you Canadian
43:54I'm from the New York area
43:58very interesting and I imagine a lot of
44:00people
44:02excellent
44:04um well one funny thing about that
44:05debate thank you for the question is
44:07that uh it was the night before that I
44:10found out about the Twitter files
44:12opportunity
44:13um you may not remember this but there
44:14was a question about them during the
44:16debate which I let the other uh my
44:21co-debator Douglas Murray answer because
44:23I didn't want to give away what was
44:25happening
44:26um but the yeah there's been a huge sea
44:28change in the media
44:31again the news media used to sort of
44:34fiercely insist on itself as a separate
44:37institution if one of us got in trouble
44:40we all kind of rallied you know in
44:42defense of the other I mean something
44:44that like that happened to me recently
44:47or I was threatened with jail you would
44:48never see nobody in media saying
44:51something about that but the incident
44:53um that sticks out in my mind was in
44:57March of uh the 2017 I remember watching
45:01congressman Adam Schiff read out his
45:05version of the Steele dossier
45:07In This Very
45:10publicized hearing on Russian active
45:13measures and I had a thought to myself
45:15though this must be true
45:17because there's no such thing as
45:19prepared Congressional remarks that
45:21haven't been fact-checked like that that
45:23would never happen
45:24and we even had a rule at Rolling Stone
45:27that if something was in a prepared
45:29remark that you could use that as a way
45:31to check a fact but I wrote to uh the
45:36ship's office
45:37and I said hey did you check any of this
45:39stuff because there were all these wild
45:41you know assertions in there about
45:43bribes and you know the FSB and all this
45:46stuff and he said um the answer came
45:49back we look forward to speaking to Mr
45:51Steele as soon as soon as possible to
45:53corroborate or refute these allegations
45:55so they hadn't checked it before they
45:57went on national television and read all
46:00this stuff and I remember talking to
46:02some other reporters
46:04um who were in Washington and saying
46:07this is crazy like how are we going to
46:09do the job if you know this is the new
46:11way of looking at things and the general
46:14perception was that in the context of
46:18fighting against Donald Trump this kind
46:20of thing was permitted this was going to
46:21be allowed from now on and
46:24you know I'm not a fan of Donald Trump I
46:26wrote a book about the guy called Insane
46:27Clown president but
46:31you can't just throw those standards out
46:34the window and expect that it's not
46:36going to come back at you eventually and
46:37that I think that's what's happened to
46:39the business is that they've lost their
46:41way that was our way of grounding
46:42ourselves uh making sure that we didn't
46:45get in trouble
46:46and you know and then now we're in a
46:50different place
46:51to politicized it
46:56was like that yeah
46:58hello
46:59um let's check this out my name is Zach
47:01I'm an 18 year old senior
47:03um and I will say that one thing that we
47:06could can't agree on is that the
47:07interplay of ideas is important no
47:09matter what our political positions are
47:11that being said in 2019 Donald Trump was
47:14president and there were some recent
47:16reports that said that the Trump
47:18Administration officials asked Twitter
47:19to take down some insulting tweets so by
47:23by your logic wouldn't that constitute a
47:25conservative effort to use the
47:27government to suppress free speech
47:34making
47:35um thanks for the question we found all
47:37sorts of people who were making efforts
47:39to try to get this person or that person
47:41taken off the platform
47:44and I reported in the first uh Twitter
47:47false thread that both the Trump
47:49Administration and
47:51uh and the Biden campaign had both made
47:55um requests and had them honored we just
47:58didn't have a lot of examples of that
47:59but more more importantly
48:02I didn't feel like those individual
48:04requests were anywhere near as important
48:07as the institutional reality uh people
48:10come and go individuals
48:13you know may do stupid things but
48:18none of what we were saying was really
48:21about the left or the right this was
48:23about the institutional structure of
48:27FBI DHS odni CIA having this
48:31relationship it could go against the
48:34right today it could go against the left
48:36tomorrow we just put out something today
48:38about
48:39you know Twitter had an algorithm that
48:44put Dr Jill Stein in a bucket called is
48:47underscore Russian
48:50so these tools they it's not about it's
48:55not about conservatives and liberals or
48:58it's very specifically not about
49:00Democrats and Republicans it's really
49:02about insiders and Outsiders and I think
49:06one of the things that has been
49:07frustrating for me is that people have
49:09tried to cast this as um you know as a
49:12partisan
49:14series of reports when actually if you
49:16read it there's maybe a couple that that
49:20you know are you the right is
49:23enthusiastic about but mostly it's more
49:26about this institutional story
49:35a few weeks ago I saw you in Michael
49:37schellenberger testifying before
49:39Congress I wondered how that turned out
49:41and if there's any follow-up or what do
49:43you expect to come of it
49:46um
49:47so I don't know if you heard but the um
49:50so I made a factual error in a tweet
49:52actually two one is that I admit I wrote
49:57cisa when I meant CIS and I got a date
50:01wrong and another one and
50:04um
50:05this turned into a tweet from an MSNBC
50:09host who in turn
50:12was picked up by Alexandra ocasio-cortez
50:15and then members of that committee that
50:17questioned us that day and their
50:21they're threatening me with perjury
50:24charges in five years in prison
50:26over the acronym
50:29and the kind of amazing thing about that
50:31is that in the process of making that
50:33accusation the the specific accusation
50:38is that
50:41um the agency sisa that I wrote they
50:45were saying that sisa does not work with
50:48this thing called the election Integrity
50:50partnership that Stanford had maintained
50:52actually they're openly Partners
50:55everybody's uh they've all announced it
50:58on their websites they you know you can
50:59see press releases about it
51:02the problem was that I just misread in a
51:05screenshot CIS I thought it was a typo
51:08and added an A but that doesn't change
51:11the fundamental reality of it but again
51:15um so there there's an error they're
51:17making but they're they're threatening
51:19you know me with jail over this which uh
51:22in addition to the fact that
51:24um I had a visit from an IRS agent
51:28to my house the day that we were
51:30testifying about this stuff and I I
51:34don't know the government any money and
51:36they one of the issues that they raised
51:38was something about an electronic return
51:40from 2018
51:42having been rejected uh because of fears
51:47of identity theft and I had never heard
51:49this before so there's all kinds of
51:51weird stuff but the really chilling
51:53thing about this is that there is this
51:56underlying
51:58I knew when we did these reports that
52:00there was going to be a negative
52:02reaction from news media that you know
52:04the quote-unquote old mainstream media
52:06that I that I used to work in for so
52:08long that they would ignore it and all
52:10that but there's this kind of like
52:12withering hatred that's out there now in
52:15society in society that is
52:18um it's kind of a mystery to me like
52:21people get worked up to the point of I
52:25think sincerely wanting to put people
52:27away forever in jail over political
52:30disputes and you know I grew up in like
52:32the Wayne's World version of America
52:33where people got high and played street
52:35hockey and didn't really care whatever
52:37what people next door did and you know
52:42there's this hatred about you know
52:44people you know us showing a few emails
52:48that is very strange and I think it's
52:51it's a cult-like behavior you know and
52:53and uh
52:55I think we got to get to the bottom of
52:56that before it gets it gets really weird
53:00um and we're getting pretty close to
53:01that I think
53:10hello
53:11um first off thank you for being willing
53:13to share your ideas with us today my
53:14name is Xavian first off I agree with
53:17you entirely that the government should
53:18not have involvement in policing ideas
53:21or opinions especially but I was curious
53:24to ask if you think there's any degree
53:25of intervention or censorship that is
53:29ever Justified either from a government
53:30entity or from private social media
53:32platforms I know recently we had some
53:35National Security concerns with an
53:37information leak on the platform Discord
53:38and in terms of honest reporting or
53:41misinformation we recently had Fox News
53:43settled with Dominion voting systems for
53:45misleading reports on the 2020 election
53:47so I just want to hear your thoughts do
53:49you think intervention in any of those
53:50cases federal or private is Justified
53:52sure that's a great
53:55happy to answer that because
53:57one of the things that's been tossed
54:00around a lot is that oh these people who
54:01are doing these stories their free
54:03speech absolutists they they will not
54:06Brook any kind of curbing of any kind of
54:11speech which is totally ridiculous any
54:14journalist who's worked in the news
54:16media
54:18um you know as I have for now more than
54:21three decades
54:23you're always negotiating a large number
54:27of restrictions to get anything into
54:30print you have to worry about liable
54:32slander or libel per se
54:36um you know you're you're worried about
54:39whether you're disclosing National
54:41Secrets
54:43um you're worried if you're even going
54:45to get a the thing you're printing is
54:47going to
54:49result in a frivolous lawsuit which will
54:52tie up your uh your organization you
54:55have to get it right I think that that's
54:58something that's very different from
54:59social media social media has a very
55:03high tolerance for libel as opposed to
55:06the old news media
55:09version which was based on litigation
55:12and where it usually it started with an
55:16injured party and they would go to
55:19um you go to the court system but you
55:21you reference the Dominion case that's
55:23an example of how the old system works
55:26uh when you have a company that has a a
55:30claim against somebody who's made an
55:33accurate claim in the news media that's
55:35harmed their reputation and materially
55:37damage their business or you know maybe
55:39their marriage or something like that
55:41it's entirely appropriate for for that
55:44to be limited that's why
55:46we have all these laws and and there's a
55:49lot of them
55:51um and you get acquainted with that when
55:53you work in the business
55:55we just haven't updated that system
55:57accurately for the internet the internet
56:00is a new phenomenon where we're not just
56:03looking at the Publications from The New
56:06York Times and NBC and looking at that
56:09we're also looking at the sort of the
56:11private conversations of ordinary
56:13citizens which can sometimes go viral
56:15what do we do about that do we have do
56:18we apply the same standards for that can
56:20those people be litigated against
56:23um I think I I agree that we need to
56:25come up with something but
56:28what they're doing
56:30is uh is there going many steps Beyond
56:34a rational response to that problem and
56:38the the major thing that I worry about
56:41is that they're
56:43you know rather than dealing with
56:47the kind of open litigation system that
56:50we had before and we had a very high bar
56:53for prohibiting speech intentionally in
56:57the states rather than dealing with that
56:58they want to start with a a new system
57:00where there's there's no kind of process
57:03there's no transparency you don't even
57:05have to be notified if you're
57:07um if you're taken off the web or
57:09de-amplified or anything like that we
57:11can't have that I think we have to we
57:13have to have something that
57:16um that respects speech and and is in
57:19the spirit of the First Amendment uh but
57:23is also you know respectful of audiences
57:27and and you know protects against true
57:30harm but you can really very easily over
57:33Define harm and that's that's where I
57:37think what we've seen in the Twitter
57:38files is is repeatedly the problem is a
57:42bunch of people getting together and
57:45by themselves deciding what harm is or
57:48what a threat is and that's not good
57:50enough I don't think
57:52I think we have time for one last
57:53question yeah
57:56uh first of all thank you so much for
57:57coming
57:59um so your speech you talked a lot about
58:01Twitter which is obviously an
58:03American-owned company however in the
58:06last couple years there's been a lot of
58:07concern about Tick Tock and
58:10potential uh threats from China so I'm
58:14just wondering what your thoughts are
58:15about the censorship of tick tock
58:17particularly concerning like its servers
58:20and ownership
58:21yeah thank you that's a really good
58:23question
58:24um
58:26you know
58:27in the process of working on this story
58:29I've had a unique unique experience of
58:32speaking with a lot of people from the
58:36intelligence World which is sort of a
58:37new thing for me I I haven't spent a lot
58:40of time in that beat
58:42I covered Finance I covered the criminal
58:45justice system never this really and a
58:49lot of what they're saying is that
58:52what we're seeing now is come to head is
58:56a long simmering argument over how much
59:00how many information operations we're
59:02going to tolerate
59:04you know we've been doing this kind of
59:06thing what they call offensive
59:08information operations all the major
59:11powers of the world have been doing it
59:12to each other
59:14since World War II it's just with the
59:17Advent of the internet and social media
59:19it's gotten much much easier they're
59:21creating fake accounts we do it that's
59:24one of the things that we found out in
59:25the in the Twitter files with you know
59:27the Pentagon and Cent comes
59:30creates fake accounts why do they do
59:31that because if there's a drone attack
59:33in a village well we want to have local
59:35Arab language accounts that say there
59:37weren't that many casualties that kind
59:39of stuff happens but it also you know
59:41Russia does it China does it Iran does
59:43it
59:44um so what do you do about that you know
59:48for the same reasons that China's
59:51nervous about having Google and uh in
59:54China
59:55we I think justifiably that there's some
59:58justifiable concern about platforms like
1:00:01Tick Tock where you know there's there's
1:00:03a threat there might be some Chinese
1:00:05propaganda but
1:00:07the response to it that I that that we
1:00:09have now that is the proposed solution
1:00:12the restrict act
1:00:14um
1:00:15you know that's like the Patriot Act on
1:00:17steroids that's it's a it's an over a
1:00:21compensation it it allows it again
1:00:23allows a group of people who are
1:00:25unrelated regulated to make subjective
1:00:28determinations about what is or is not a
1:00:30threat to National Security and from
1:00:32there they can basically just step in
1:00:33and shut anything not not just Tick Tock
1:00:36down and
1:00:38um I worry about that you know I I
1:00:41there's a fine line that has to be
1:00:43walked here
1:00:46um you know between allowing these
1:00:48things I mean I think once upon a time
1:00:50we weren't afraid of Russian propaganda
1:00:53or Chinese propaganda America I had a
1:00:55strong enough society that you know they
1:00:57could put out their you know newspapers
1:01:00and we will even allowed it to happen
1:01:03and we weren't scared of it
1:01:06um
1:01:07I
1:01:08I I wonder if that threat is overblown
1:01:10frankly but but certainly if there's
1:01:13going to be a solution we can't have it
1:01:15be this
1:01:17um sort of nuclear-powered uh
1:01:21Federal let's give us the authority to
1:01:23go in anywhere and just wipe it all out
1:01:26if we if we feel threatened I think
1:01:29that's we've seen that that kind of
1:01:30thing be abused already and I worry
1:01:33about that
1:01:34well that's all the time we have for
1:01:36today but I hope you'll all join me in
1:01:37thanking Mr chayibi for being with us
1:01:39this afternoon
1:01:42thank you so much
1:01:55[Applause]

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