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March 12, 2022 - One American - Chase Geiser
27:18
Free Speech & Big Tech With GETTR CEO Jason Miller & Chase Geiser | OAP #76

CEO, GETTR, The Marketplace of Ideas. Former Senior Advisor, President Donald J. Trump.

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I started this podcast because I noticed a concerted effort to shame America and what it means to be American.
One American Podcast reinforces the values and ideals of America by having conversations with key influencers from all over the world who resonate with the values embodied by Americanism.
If you believe in things like the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and want to be part of the conversation with others who do too, then you're in the right place.
So before we get into this episode, I'm asking you today, as one American, to tap the like button below and subscribe to the channel.
This engagement really helps these conversations reach as many viewers as possible.
Make sure to comment I subscribed below, and I'll do my best to respond to each and every comment.
My name is Chase Geiser, and I am one American.
Music.
you you Hey, this is Chase Geyser, and today we are live with Jason Miller from Getter.
Jason, are you with me?
It looks like you might have frozen up.
Uh so I am here.
I I think I'm unfrozen now.
Um hopefully uh I'm good.
Actually, good.
No, but Chase, uh, thanks for having me and uh admired your work for a while now.
So um it's great to join you.
It's a pleasure.
So I'm gonna cut to a brief word from a sponsor and then we'll get started right away.
Sounds good.
In 16 years, it'll be the year 2000.
He'll be 19 years old.
What happens if every tax dollar that we pay, 50 to 60 percent of us just going to pay the interest on the debt?
He will be paying for what we lived on.
We should be investing to allow him to be able to live on something.
Joe Biden wants an immediate budget phrase, a constitutional amendment to limit spending and a fair tax bill to guarantee our children's future.
Delaware's own Joe Biden.
Isn't that unbelievable?
Yeah, I've I've literally never seen that clip.
I I went through an entire presidential campaign, never saw the.
Of course, I saw uh at first when you started to play it, I thought you're gonna go into the Neil Kinneck um, you know, generations of Biden's and uh playing football and playing in the grass, and I'm the first one to go to college.
Uh I've never seen this one.
I mean, what do you think Joe would do if someone showed this to him right now?
I don't know.
He definitely wouldn't remember it.
He can hardly remember his name.
This is this is very true.
Or where the bathroom is.
Um, but uh it's it it's it's really hit rock bottom for Joe.
Yeah, uh absolutely.
But uh, you know, I I'm I've been a fan of getter for a long time.
Obviously, getters a hot uh a hot story, and I'm in the social media business.
What I do for my day job is I run a small social advert social media advertising company.
And um, you know, we've seen a lot of different platforms try and fail.
Um, I wouldn't call Gab a failure, for example, but I think that what a lot of platforms have done in the free speech space is that they've um done a really good job of getting new users because there's like a protest sign up that happens with this mass censorship that we see on big tech.
But the struggle is keeping those users engaged, and that's something that I've noticed has been a difference about getter versus these other alternative platforms is somehow you keep you've found a way to get people to some greater extent to keep logging back in and actually checking their profiles, engaging and commenting.
Like what what has been different about the strategy with Getter that's that's allowed you guys to keep the engagement and not just the user adoption?
Well, great question.
And I would say that when we kick this platform off, I really had two primary goals I pointed out for the team.
Number one, I want to make sure that the tech, the user interface was just as good, if not better than anything Silicon Valley had.
Because again, to your point, you can get that protest visit of people saying, okay, I'll download the app, I'll come check it out.
But if they look and say it's an inferior product or it's not available on the app stores, uh, or there's just something a little bit kind of hinky about it, it just doesn't quite feel like it clicks, they're not gonna come back.
So, number one, we had to have the first rate tech to be able to pull this off.
The second thing is that where I really set the vision out for the entire company is that this can't be an American echo chamber.
This truly has to be global in scope because if we want to scale, if we want to actually take on big tech, then we have to do it well outside of Rome borders.
And then as I started researching things, what I found out is whether it's uh renegade governments, whether it's big tech trying to shut down voices in other countries as well.
Everyone across the planet is facing this frustration and challenge with the censorship of free speech.
And so, number one, make sure we have the tech.
Number two, make sure it's truly a global platform and not just about the US.
And those are two things we stayed focused on.
I think it's really helped us to grow.
And uh now we're at five million users, uh, just eight months in.
Well, congratulations on uh on your user growth.
Speaking of the tech, has it been difficult for you to find uh talent?
Another good question.
Uh initially, yes.
Uh initially we had some great engineers that were working on is we uh the other thing that I I said early on is our goal is not to become a marketplace competitor in the microblogging sphere simply to Twitter, because as you notice with Twitter, Twitter's never taking it to that next level because they kind of got to their peak optimization as far as their features and they stalled out.
In fact, it's only since we've been on the scene over the last six months that we've really started to see Twitter actually talk about new features or start to add new things that make users want to come back.
But there's a reason why uh Apple, for example, has a new phone every year or some different version of the phone every six months.
It's to keep people engaged and keep coming back.
And we found that with our new features.
But initially, yes, I'd probably say that maybe two out of every three uh engineers that we would approach would give us some kind of answer about not wanting to get on the wrong side of big tech.
I can't go and make Facebook or Google or Twitter, one of these guys upset by doing a challenger platform.
But where I really knew that we kind of hit the big time was a few weeks ago, I had someone who ultimately joined Getter that had a job offer from Google and a job offer from us, and they took the job offer from Getter.
And first, my first reaction was, hey, are you sure?
Like, you know, they probably have better benefits.
Like I don't want to, you know, negotiate against myself, but you know, we we don't have fancy snacks in the in the break room like I'm sure they do at Google.
But the person said, No, for far too long.
Um, I've been told that I'm some kind of weirdo, I'm an outcast uh because I don't cue this this leftist uh ideologue orthodoxy.
I want to be free to be what I'm about.
And this person said, I'm a registered independent, I'm not even a Republican, I'm not a conservative, but I don't want to be told how to think.
And when that person then joined the team, then I was like, you know what?
We've made it.
This is something special.
Well, congratulations on hiring Edward Snowden.
So I wanted to ask you that's just a joke, folks.
So I wanted to ask you, speaking of microblogging competitors, when is getter going to acquire Truth Social?
So uh interesting question.
Um look, I I do think that so a couple things here.
I do think that a certain point I think they will get their act together and figure out kind of how they want to proceed forward.
Uh, but at the same time, I do think uh look, I've had talks with my team about what it would look like to go and acquire them as well as some of the other platforms that are out there.
Uh, because I do think that while we want to have a decentralized approach, want to have more voices.
Um, and I think that people are going to be more than willing to have Rumble on their phone, uh, to have getter, maybe have truth as well.
I do think the way that we've gotten off to such an impressive early start.
I do think it would make sense if ultimately we found a way to acquire them.
Uh, but I think it's probably a little early uh to go into any kind of formal conversation on that.
And look, I spoke with the president uh night before last, and I'm still in pretty regular contact with them.
I'm not gonna go and push things, um, but it at the right time I've made it very clear to him that I'd like to find a way to team up and I have his handle reserved and I want to make sure that he has a voice, not just going to the midterms, but I'm pretty sure he's gonna run in 2024 and he's gonna want a platform that truly works.
Absolutely.
Well, and you know, one of the things that is a struggle for for platforms just in general is the need for constant content to be published on the platform, right?
Because without the content, then there's no engagement.
Without the engagement, there's no user base, etc.
Right.
And one of the things that TikTok did that was amazing as many problems, of course, as I have with TikTok, is they figured out a way to really um catalyze that endorphin response and new users where you can create a new account and you can make a video that goes viral and 500,000 people see it, you know, within a couple of days.
So you're like, even if you don't have followers built up, you're experiencing that engagement that makes you want to keep using the platform over and over again.
So my question for you is what is sort of like the overall content strategy for getter moving forward?
I really love the live stream features that you're you're slowly kind of launching out.
I think that you guys are doing a great job.
I'm seeing some good content on there.
But what's what do you guys have a long-term strategy for how to sort of partner with strategic influencers or creators in order to really kind of make some awesome content That's sort of exclusive to the platform, or what's what's the what's the strategy there for you?
Yeah, absolutely.
And so I'm gonna go and pull up for you here.
So on the getter platform, and it's a little tough to see with the light shining, but we have obviously our timeline.
We have our scroll.
Um we have been, it's in the beta testing phase at the moment, uh, but we do have our short video uh competitor to TikTok and Instagram Reels.
Uh, we got some stuff coming on here from uh Ukraine, number of things as people are posting.
Um, and so we have launched Vision, and I'd say there are probably about probably a few hundred people that are going through and continuing to test and refine it.
Um the the short video format really is what drives a lot of the engagement.
In fact, Zuckerberg said uh that uh approximately 65% of all Instagram engagement comes through Instagram reels.
There's a reason why they took Instagram reels and actually moved it over to the main Facebook platform because Facebook itself is dying, but the short video clip format, whether it's reels, whether it's TikTok, is what the younger generation, my 13-year-old, for example, uh, who looked at me like I'm the the crazy boomer when it came to uh the the timeline.
But then as soon as I said we had this short video component, she's like, Dad, does this mean I can be on getter?
I was like, no, not till you're 16.
We're not gonna allow the the kids on here.
We're not gonna we're not gonna go and target the preteens.
Um so the functionality and also with the live streaming.
In fact, President Trump's rally in Arizona that he had back in January had a million people watching his rally on getter via three different streams.
That was over right side, real America's voice, and newsmax.
Um then we had about 775,000 uh in the last one, and then of course he has a rally coming up this Saturday.
Uh, and so uh the features that we're rolling out, I think are gonna be key.
But we've also started add on a number of people doing some partnerships in the UK, Madge Nawaz, uh, who of course was just on the Joe Rogan show, uh, Dominique Samuels, who we've added on.
Uh, we have a number of different partners we've added here in the US.
We're continuing to expand that.
We've had people who've joined uh on their own as well.
In fact, um, Russell Brand just joined Getter, uh, which is fantastic.
And I got to follow it from Russell Brand, which is the CEO.
It's kind of cool to be like, hey, like, you know, Russell Brand follows me on getter, you know.
That's that's cool.
But one other thing, Chase, that I will point out that and we just literally literally, this is kind of a hot off the presses thing.
Uh, we allowed people um uh verified users, allowed them to start doing it.
A smaller group yesterday opened to all verified users on Friday, and then excuse me, on Monday, we're gonna open up to everybody.
When you post on getter, it'll then appear on Twitter.
So you'll have the cross-posting.
So we're getting there, so we're making it, and then a certain point we'll expand.
So all you have to do is check your timeline on getter.
You post there, it'll show up on the other things.
This will be a game changer because then you don't have to pop back over to Twitter because if you have a lot of followers built up, things like that.
And so we're we're our engineers, these guys have big brains.
Our CTO, our chief technology officer.
This guy has five degrees from MIT.
In fact, when he said it in his interview, I immediately DMed the uh uh the HR lady is like, okay, this guy's lying.
Oh, I think I just lost you.
I don't know uh what happened here if you cut out, but folks, we will uh get this buttoned up and um as soon as he unfreezes, we will uh pop right back on over and let him uh finish the answer to that question.
Oh, are you there?
I just saw you for a second.
I think there you go.
You're back, you're back.
Okay, sorry, sorry about that.
It's the uh as soon as you you know what I'm gonna blame it on you, Chase, because you said Snowden, then all of a sudden we started getting the FPI.
That was yeah, yeah, yeah.
Whatever you do, do not mention uh you know, Snowden or Julian Assange.
You keep saying it, you keep saying it.
Or or or or Putin or invade like I'm gonna start freezing up.
Um, but no, but it's the it's the features that make it really cool.
And it's it's exciting.
Sometimes you even as a CEO, I become a little bit of the fanboy looking at some of the technology and the things these guys are coming up with.
Um, but it kind of goes to the point where I stole the line from my former boss that we want to make social media fun again.
We want to be able to get some enthusiasm back into it.
And it doesn't have to be the cesspool of negativity like we see on Twitter.
I didn't realize Bill Gates had said that originally.
So the next thing I wanted to ask you about is uh uh I really liked what you said about the global strategy, and I think that's really insightful and wise that you're taking that approach.
Obviously, you know, whether it's Joe Rogan as a podcast host or it's Facebook or Twitter or any of these other sort of successful platforms or outlets, you know, the their their massive growth and engagement really occurred before everything was hyper political, right?
Like part of what was cool about Twitter at one point at least was that you there are people from the left and people from the right, because they really got the journalists involved.
And so you had the left there, and then obviously just everybody kind of joined over time.
Facebook, same way.
Everybody joined, regardless of their politics.
Um, Joe Rogan's popularity, I attribute uh in large to the fact that he's had guests of all different walks and beliefs.
He's got he's got serious beliefs that fall on either the right or the left.
He's not really obviously one way or the other, despite what the media says.
How are you going to, or maybe you don't want to, but how are you going to try to grow getter so that lefties aren't just like, oh, that's the alt-right platform.
You know, that's kind of what happened to Gab.
And I don't want to talk any, I don't want to say anything negative about Gab because I love what they're doing.
I appreciate them.
But it's a real problem for them from a PR standpoint.
It's hard for them to grow.
And so you you make a really smart point here.
And this actually, this is part of the reason why I also wanted to make sure we embrace uh an international strategy to make sure it wasn't in just an American echo chamber that we had points of view and viewpoints from all over the world uh so people realized there was the variety.
So before we kicked off, I went and approached, and believe it or not, this isn't uh fake news.
I actually do have some democratic friends.
And you've been around in Washington long enough, whether you know him from college or from Belly and up to the bar at the local uh tavern, um, then you you invariably get to know some Democrats.
I went to a few and said, Look, I want to go and get some crazy lefties like you onto the platform.
And what they said, um, you know, after kind of their their perfunctory, you know, four-letter words, uh, look, it it's just it's too hot right now.
And the other thing too is why would we go and join uh a platform like yours when we're not getting kicked off of Twitter and Facebook?
We just don't have a reason to go and shift.
So one of the approaches that we're taking to make sure that we get the kind of this broad diverse voice, and we will get some lefties.
There's they're starting to trickle in.
We're really making a push to try to get people who aren't political necessarily at all.
Maybe they have more of a sports platform, maybe they're uh cooking, maybe they're into maybe they're singers.
Um, and they might have some uh some passionate uh center right type ideology, especially around say COVID, um, the mandates, the lockdowns, things of that nature.
Maybe they would they question uh uh they question things that we're being forced to think of.
I think of the again, I referenced them earlier, but Russell Brand, you referenced Joe Rogan.
I think these are people who, when they wake up in the morning, they don't think of themselves as political actors.
They don't wake up and say, hey, I'm gonna put on my Republican jersey today, or I'm gonna put on my Democrat jersey.
But I inherently believe that we're being lied to way too often or being manipulated, not just by the government, but by the media, uh by big tech, and they're kind of this this divide between the haves and the have nots, and they think we're just gonna follow them blindly like sheep.
So we're making the big push is to bring more of these athletes and entertainers and people from non-traditional uh ideological viewpoints on board.
So less of the partisanship, but more of the passionate free speech people.
And I tell all of my friends, the Democrats included, guys, the pendulum is gonna swing back.
When you think of the the free speech debates over the last decades or last century, whether it be women's rights or African-American rights or gay rights uh or anything, a lot of times the the free speech debate has been viewed as say center left uh proposition.
Well, this is really the first time, at least in my lifetime, where the the clampdowns have come on the center and center right.
The pendulum's gonna swing back because what we found out is that once these big tech platforms knew that they could kick off a sitting president of the United States from their platform, it sends out guns out at this point.
Either you agree with them or they're gonna go and put you in a box or put you in some digital time out.
And so that that's that's kind of the expansion.
And but I do think that the um as Twitter and Facebook continue to be crazy uh with their world forming, I think we will get more people from the left.
So when I really first noticed that the censorship problem was starting to happen, and this is somebody who works every day in Facebook ads manager and deals with terms of services and policies, and I follow this because it's my business too.
Um, I noticed that the censorship really started after the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
And having looked into that scandal uh in some depth, it seems to me like that was really hyped as a bigger problem than it was in conjunction with the Russian collusion uh uh hoax, right?
So If you remember after Trump won in 2016, the Democrats said it was because of Russian collusion and that it was because Facebook was leaking data via Cambridge Analytica to Russian actors, right?
And when that happened, and Zuckerberg came like the like a robot to Congress and sipped his water and spoke for like seven hours.
I'm sure you're you would know better than I, but I noticed a ship, a shift in the censorship attitude of big tech at that moment.
It seemed as if big tech became afraid of federal action.
And so my question for you, and that this is the setup for that is is this big tech censorship just a manifestation of company culture, or is it actually the federal government applying pressure either directly or indirectly on these companies?
So Gina's question, I'd say it's all of the above.
And one of the things you started to hit on, um, just but just going kind of flesh out this point.
After 2016, a lot of the progressive left went to Zuckerberg, went to Dorsey, and said, It's all because of you pesky kids that we got Trump.
You guys built these platforms, you allowed him to use it.
He was able to circumvent the press, the traditional press, circumvent traditional media, uh, go around all these institutions we have in place and talk directly to people.
Never again can we allow this to happen.
And so they so ostracize Zuckerberg, uh, for example, that I mean, they wouldn't even invite him to plug into their charging station.
I mean, he had to just go and power down uh, you know, at his own uh complete uh you know, complete factories.
Um so I think that's why you saw the what was kind of the snapback effect with big tech of saying, okay, we're really getting beat up.
We're getting blamed uh for Trump.
So now we have to overcorrect and let's go and start clamping down.
So where for me, where the censorship really became an issue was in January of 2020.
And we noticed people start to say, Hey, this virus is coming from a lab in Wuhan, and the big tech platforms were saying, okay, we're gonna sentence you to digital jail for daring to blame this on the Chinese.
Which guess what?
The virus came from a lab in Wuhan.
I don't know if it was man-made, I don't know if it's traiced out by a lazy worker.
It's got patented Moderna technology in it, man.
Right.
But here's the thing like the virus came from a lab and Wuhan.
There was a reason why China shut down travel from Wuhan to the rest of the country for Chinese New Year in 2020.
Um, even though not international community, but not international.
You could fly from Wuhan to the US, but you couldn't go from Wuhan to Beijing.
Okay, guys, the it it's the virus came from a lab and China.
Anyways, but we saw that.
But then, of course, the most egregious example, even before we got to um, even before we got to President Trump being deplatformed was the Hunter Biden laptop scandal.
Yes.
And uh there was, of course, after election is after the election, but Media Research Center did that survey that said one out of every six Biden voter would have reconsidered their vote for Biden if they'd known about the the hunter business dealings, and of course, the 10% for the big guy, uh, the Biden business dealings, the broader Biden family.
Why is that an issue?
The two countries that were most likely being brought up were Ukraine and China.
What has it has us at the precipice of uh uh global conflict, if not a start of a new cold war?
Ukraine.
What's the true existential threat challenging Western civilization, not just the US, but all Western civilization, China?
These are the two places where the Biden were making all their money.
Anyways, the point being is that that's where I really saw that the censorship issue was becoming big.
But as I started doing my research, I realized just how prevalent this type of discrimination uh is all around the world.
In fact, the way that Twitter and Facebook are trying to clamp down on uh quote unquote Hindu nationalism uh that is somehow being discriminatory uh towards Hindus and exact so that now they're attacking them, uh, which is crazy.
We see President Bolsonaro in Brazil, who by the way is on the platform, the way that he's being censored and um uh suspended and things like that by the social media companies.
So this is much bigger and broader, even than just President Trump being deplatformed.
That's very interesting.
So let me ask you this.
You know, five million users is awesome, and I congratulate you on that.
That's that's that's a serious accomplishment.
That being said, relative to Facebook and Twitter, um there's a gap, and that's fine to be expected.
I think you're gonna I think that you're gonna um uh narrow that gap for sure over time.
The point I'm trying to make is uh, or the question that I'm trying to ask is have you obviously you have to comply with Google and Apple terms of service on your platform, but have you uh, as the leader CEO of Getter um experience any pressure from big tech or government entities to uh increase the censorship on your platform?
Uh uh good question.
So domestically in the US, nothing from any of the uh uh quote unquote traditional uh big tech platforms uh uh is obviously that run the Apple store and the Google Play Store, nothing at all, uh which has been good.
Um there have obviously with regard to some of the international partners um with regard to the EU and not just on say their their GDPR type rules uh that are becoming more and more onerous.
Um but as you look on the some of the clampdowns that they're having with some of the the international aspects.
And look, we work to uh to be constructive partners uh with governments who have different rules and regulations uh pertaining to speech.
Uh, but we have seen in a couple of places where some of these governments have really started to target and go after individuals uh for we've considered ridiculous reasons.
Right now it's really just been say request.
It hasn't been say an order uh where anything's become seriously problematic.
Uh, but it uh it's it's a matter of time.
It's a matter of when not if uh that becomes a broader conflict, and I'm sure we'll end up in several places being the tip of the spear for some of these legal challenges to continue to fight for people's speech freedoms, even if they're not fighting for them themselves.
So, you know, the I've I've been a big fan of Steve Jobs for a long time.
I've been an Apple user since I was a little kid.
I think that what he did was incredibly innovative.
Uh over and over again, he was just such an innovator, such a leader.
And I've studied his work.
I read the biography by uh Walter Isaacson, which I recommend for anyone interested.
And the reason I bring him up is because you know, he was famously fired from his own company in the 80s because he was trying to invest money in innovating new products and they wanted to continue to invest in the Apple II, which had been their bestseller, and ultimately the board overruled him.
And so the reason I mentioned that is because I want to ask you how is the company culture and the corporate structure set up at Getter so that when there is pressure on leadership at the company, you can stand by your principles without having to fear for losing your position or or I because it's easy to buy boards, right?
Nobody makes statutes of committees for a reason, right?
And so how do you keep the that corporate integrity intact?
Well, I think because this isn't just purely a business, but it's also a passion project, I think, for everybody involved.
And so whether it be the board members, whether it be our investors, we have two international investment funds uh that are our initial investors for the platform, everybody is very much bought into the free speech aspect and even more specific about how we need to use this free speech aspect to bring freedom and democracy around the world, how we want to take on and ultimately take down the CCP uh, for example.
And so everyone's really bought in on this mission.
Does it mean we agree on everything?
No, of course, there are going to be uh little uh speed bumps uh that happen along the way, like there is with any family conversation.
But since we're actually driven by an ideal star as opposed to uh is opposed to just a bottom line profit aspect, I think that changes the dynamic and really uh what our focus is here.
Um, because uh again, it's it's all about trust.
Once you lose that trust, once people think that that you're not committed to the cause, uh then the value proposition, so much of the value proposition uh of the getter platform goes away.
Right.
So where can people find you and follow you?
Absolutely.
So getter, G-E-T-T-R, which I I very in a very subtle way, uh have it plastered all behind me.
So if you've been watching here and you didn't see the G E T T R completely just all in your face, um, so you can go to getter.com and go to the Apple store, G-E-T-T-R or the Google Play Store, G-E-T-T-R.
Uh, download us, it's super quick.
No waiting list, uh, no waiting list.
You can get right in and get right and start using it.
Um, and we'll ask you to say, come check out the platform, whether it be the uh some great folks, whether it be Steve Bannon, uh, whether it be Dinesh D'Souza, it'd be Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, uh, Russell Brand, uh Joe Rogan's on the platform, uh, Jorge Masvedal.
I know we lost on Saturday, but he stole our boy, Gomaz.
Um uh Enos Cantor Freedom, who's on the platform, President Bolsonaro from Brazil.
It's really exciting just the way that we've seen this off and grow.
And I'm glad to be over the ride.
Well, thank you so much for coming on the show.
I appreciate you taking the time of day.
Uh, it was an honor and a pleasure to have you, and let's stay in touch, okay?
All right, thanks, Chase.
Appreciate it and uh continue success with the show and uh look forward to chatting with you again.
Take care.
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