April 28, 2022 - Epoch Times
16:25
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| Good evening. | |
| This right here is the headquarters of Twitter, located in the city of San Francisco, California. | |
| And if you listen very carefully, no matter where you are in the country, You can hear the faint but distinctive sound of a collective groan coming out of this building. | |
| Now, of course, I'm joking, but at the same time, I'm not joking. | |
| Because due to the work of the undercover journalist over at Project Veritas, we now have in hand the leaked audio recording from an all-hands Twitter meeting, which was held two days ago, right after the announcement was made that Elon Musk was taking over the company. | |
| And this leaked audio was actually quite revealing because it shows how the high-ranking executives of the company, including Mr. | |
| Parag Agraval, the CEO of Twitter, are both trying to get a handle on Elon Musk's purchase of the platform, as well as to help the employees at the company cope with all of the coming changes. | |
| Specifically, the changes that are coming down the pipe in regards to free speech. | |
| And so, let's go through the leaked audio together, starting with a segment on free speech. | |
| And for your reference, the way that this meeting actually worked is that Ms. | |
| Leslie Berland, who is the Chief Marketing Officer of Twitter, she was reading out loud the questions that different Twitter staff members submitted to the CEO. And also, by the way, I'm going to speed up the audio just a little bit so that way we can get through it faster. | |
| So, take a listen. | |
| Is there an updated understanding on what free speech means that we're aware of? | |
| I think we all understand what free speech means. | |
| I don't think it's about an updated understanding of that. | |
| It's been a concept that's existed for a while. | |
| But I think I'm going to try to read the question behind the question here, which is, where might Twitter's product go as a private company in the future once this deal closes? | |
| And I think that's a great question. | |
| To best gain perspective on this, Now, just a pause there for a quick moment. | |
| I believe his answer danced around the subject quite a bit without getting to the heart of the matter, which is that the vision which Elon Musk has publicly expressed for the company appears to be in direct contradiction to the vision that the current CEO, Mr. | |
| Parag Agarwal, has expressed. | |
| For instance, just yesterday, Elon Musk posted a statement on Twitter which gave us a picture of what he means when he uses the term free speech. | |
| Here's what he wrote. | |
| Now, compare that statement from Elon Musk to the statement which was made by Mr. Alvarez, Agarwal in a media interview that he gave in the year 2020. | |
| Quote... | |
| Our role is not to be bound by the First Amendment, but our role is to serve a healthy public conversation, and our moves are reflective of things that we believe lead to a healthier public conversation. | |
| The kinds of things that we do about this is focus less on thinking about free speech, but thinking about how the times have changed. | |
| And so it appears, just on the very face of it, that these two viewpoints represent two completely different approaches to running the platform, approaches that likely cannot coexist. | |
| Furthermore, another question raised during that Twitter meeting asks specifically about the company's moderation policies. | |
| I want to make it clear in public that a large part of the reason he bought the platform was because of our moderation policies and disagreements in how we deal with health, something that we place in value very highly within the company. | |
| This puts Twitter service and trust and safety, as well as anybody who cares about health on the platform, in a very difficult position. | |
| Can you speak your thoughts on this and how those teams will be supported? | |
| I believe Twitter grows as a service, allows for more people to use the product and have a better experience because we're able to make the conversation on Twitter be safe, because we are able to eliminate manipulation, because we are able to remove spammers, because we have built tools, processes for people because we are able to remove spammers, because we have built tools, processes for people to be able to feel | |
| Twitter service, the role of our policies, and the capabilities we've built around content moderation are fundamental to keeping Twitter safe and growing. | |
| I believe that there is a lot of work we have to do to continue making that better. | |
| Sometimes that means more thoughtful moderation. | |
| And so again, that answer seemed to dance around the subject quite a bit and was not very definitive. | |
| However, within the question, there exists an assumption. | |
| The assumption that the people doing the moderating have a monopoly on truth. | |
| That the moderators know better than the people that they are moderating. | |
| And over the last two years, we've seen this play out on a grand scale within the context of health on the platform of Twitter. | |
| Just as a simple example, about four months ago, the American Heart Association published a certain study abstract over on their website. | |
| And that study, it expressed concerns regarding an elevated risk of heart disease resulting from the mRNA vaccine. | |
| And so, as usual, people posted the link to that study on their Twitter accounts so that their friends and family could go on over to the American Heart Association's website and read the study for themselves. | |
| However, what wound up happening was that not many people clicked on the link to that particular study. | |
| Why? | |
| Well, because Twitter slapped an unsafe label on that post. | |
| Let me just repeat that. | |
| Twitter slapped an unsafe label on a post to the official American Heart Association website. | |
| Meaning, that when you clicked on the link, you were shown this page here, which said this, quote, Warning, this link may be unsafe. | |
| The link you are trying to access has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially spammy or unsafe. | |
| In accordance with Twitter's URL policy, this link could fall into any of the below categories. | |
| However, again, this link was going directly to the American Heart Association's website. | |
| And so you might ask, why was it being marked as being unsafe? | |
| Well, you see, while not being definitive, the study did express concerns about the elevated risk of heart disease following an injection, which, as you imagine, would lead to vaccine hesitancy. | |
| And the system that Twitter has in place, it doesn't allow for that. | |
| Because alongside things like spam and malware, well, Twitter recently updated their warning system to include, Which apparently is the category that this particular study, again, a study on the American Heart Association's own website, fell into. | |
| And so you see, the assumption behind these content moderation policies is almost always that the moderators have some kind of a monopoly on the good facts and the good truth, and therefore, they can restrict your access to the bad facts and the bad truth. | |
| However, with this change of leadership, well, things might actually change at Twitter, and people might be able to, once again, look at the data for themselves, look at the studies for themselves, debate the substance of the issues, and then decide what they believe, instead of having just the authorities tell them what's true or not. | |
| And part of that means having diverse voices on the platform. | |
| Which actually ties neatly into another question that was raised during that all-hands meeting, which was in regards to Twitter's DEI goals. | |
| Which for your reference, DEI stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion. | |
| Take a listen. | |
| There are a few questions on this. | |
| I would love to know how this change will impact our overall DEI goals. | |
| Twitter is at its best when all diverse voices in the world feel safe and feel encouraged to engage in the public conversation. | |
| That belief is what drives us to have a diverse workforce internally on all dimensions. | |
| To have multiple perspectives and points of views represented internally so that we can empathize with all of our customers all around the world and serve them in the best possible way. | |
| That is a core belief of mine. | |
| That doesn't change. | |
| Now, just to pause here for a quick moment. | |
| What's really ironic here, and not just in Twitter, but in most companies with DEI goals, is that generally they are only looking at the surface of people. | |
| They want different genders, different ethnicities, and different races represented at their company, which is absolutely all well and good. | |
| However, the reality appears to be that at Twitter you have a diversity of everything except political opinion. | |
| In fact, according to an analysis of political donations made by Twitter employees during the last midterm elections, well, 98.7% of the money went to Democrats. | |
| Think about that. | |
| 98.7%. | |
| Meaning that when they talk about having a diverse workforce, well, in practice, it means that they have female Democrats, they have black Democrats, they have Indian Democrats, they have gay Democrats, they have Asian Democrats, and so on and so forth. | |
| The discussion of DEI almost never incorporates ideological diversity. | |
| And now, before we move on to the next Twitter question, I have a question for you. | |
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| And now let's head on back to the studio. | |
| And in fact, along that line, another one of the questions that was raised during the town hall, well, it specifically revolved around whether a former Republican president will be allowed back on the platform. | |
| There are a I think we've been doing our work to learn about what's happening out there. | |
| We constantly evolve our policies. | |
| We make decisions for the health of the public conversation every day. | |
| We've been doing this work. | |
| We will keep doing this work. | |
| Once the deal closes, we don't know which direction the platform will go in. | |
| I believe when we have an opportunity to speak with Elon in an EMA, it's a question we should address to him. | |
| I will of course be spending time with him to understand where he sees the future of Twitter, as I said earlier, and to inform him about the approaches we have taken, the principles that have guided us, the lessons we have learned along the way, so that we enable, through collaboration, the thriving Twitter in the future. | |
| Whether or not Elon Musk decides to allow President Trump back on is still unclear. | |
| However, just yesterday, President Trump released a statement saying that even if his account is reactivated on Twitter, he will not go back. | |
| Likely because of the fact that he has spent so much time and effort building up Truth Social, his own social media platform. | |
| And in fact, shortly after President Trump made the announcement that he will not be returning to Twitter, well, the stock price of his own platform, it rose by almost 25%. | |
| And by the way, just as a short aside, if you have an account on Truth Social, consider following me at Facts Matter Roman. | |
| Now, another question that was raised during that town hall, it had to do with government regulation. | |
| Take a listen. | |
| Is there any impact to the FTC consent decree? | |
| If so, what would it be? | |
| Great question. | |
| I have not talked about it. | |
| There should be no impact to that. | |
| That is an agreement that we're entering into with the government. | |
| It's a settlement agreement, and we expect that no matter what form this company takes in the future, we will still be subject to that consent decree. | |
| Now, to pause here for a quick moment, while the FTC themselves has not made any announcements regarding this deal, other members of the U.S. government have. | |
| For instance, shortly after the announcement of Twitter's purchase by Elon Musk was announced, the White House press secretary came out and she said that the Biden administration would support reforming Section 230 as well as enacting antitrust reforms. | |
| Take a listen. | |
| The surgeon general has said that misinformation about COVID amounts to a public health crisis. | |
| I'm wondering, regardless of ownership... | |
| Would the White House be interested in working with Twitter like it has in the past to continue to combat this kind of misinformation? | |
| Or are we in a different part of the pandemic where that kind of partnership is no longer necessary? | |
| Well, I think we engage regularly with all social media platforms about steps that can be taken. | |
| That has continued, and I'm sure it will continue. | |
| But there are also reforms that we think Congress could take, and we would support taking, including reforming Section 230, enacting antitrust reforms, requiring more transparency. | |
| And the president is encouraged by the bipartisan support for, or engagement in those efforts. | |
| And then lastly, one of the Twitter employees asked the executives, if Twitter were to go private, then who exactly would Elon Musk be accountable to? | |
| Question brought to you, Brett. | |
| With no board in place, who will keep Elon accountable and how? | |
| So, private companies are operating differently than public companies, but private companies are also subject to many of the same regulations we are as a public company in each of the jurisdictions that we operate. | |
| It's a somewhat nuanced question, but just like not only we're a public company, but we're a Delaware public company and that dictates our governance. | |
| Now, the question that was raised by that particular employee, it appears to be in the exact same vein as that of the regulators over in the European Union. | |
| That's because in an interview with the Financial Times, the EU commissioner, Mr. | |
| Thierry Breton, he said that Elon Musk must follow the rules on moderating illegal and harmful content online. | |
| And in terms of which specific rules he's referring to, well, less than a week ago, the European Union signed into law a new piece of legislation that targets social media companies who don't moderate their content. | |
| And the penalty for that law is pretty steep. | |
| Here's specifically what Mr. | |
| Breton said on this point. | |
| Quote, And | |
| as an apparent response, just a few hours after that statement was released from the European Commissioner, well, Elon Musk released his statement, the one that we actually read earlier, clarifying exactly what he means by free speech. | |
| I'll read the relevant part of that statement again. | |
| Quote, However, if that somehow doesn't work out, perhaps Elon Musk can take the advice of this foreign policy analyst who perhaps Elon Musk can take the advice of this foreign policy analyst Quote, Looks like Elon Musk is going to have to buy the EU. | |
| If you'd like to listen to the full leaked audio in its entirety, well, I'll throw a link to it. | |
| It'll be down in the description box below this video for you to check out, which, by the way, is that same description box right below that like button that I hope you take a moment to smash, as well as that subscribe button, which I hope, if you haven't already, you smash as well. | |
| That way you can get this type of honest news content delivered directly into your YouTube feed every single weekday. | |
| And lastly, as I mentioned yesterday, I published a phenomenal episode over on Epic TV detailing a letter that we received here at the Epoch Times from a January 6th prisoner. | |
| He wrote it behind bars, and after three months of somehow going through different channels, it wound up in the hands of his lawyer, who passed it on to us here at the Epoch Times. | |
| Here's a trailer for that episode. | |
| Right now, a man by the name of Jeremy Brown, who has served this country for the past 20 years as a decorated military veteran, as a U.S. Army Green Beret, well, he has for the past seven months now been locked up in jail as a January 6th prisoner. | |
| His alleged crime? | |
| One misdemeanor count of allegedly trespassing on U.S. Capitol grounds. | |
| However, Thanks to a serendipitous chain of events, we here at the Epoch Times obtained a letter written by Jeremy's own hand from behind bars. | |
| I want to read this letter together with you because this is a firsthand account that I believe all Americans should have access to, something that should be kept for the history books, a firsthand account of a January 6th prisoner that might very well light the brush fires of liberty in the souls of men. | |
| Now, the reception for that particular episode has been phenomenal. | |
| A lot of people are leaving comments in this section for the comments on Epic TV saying, hey, I reached out to this person's congressman. | |
| I want him to be released right now because sitting for seven months in a high security jail just for a misdemeanor trespassing charge does not seem to be right. | |
| If you want to check out that episode, I'll throw a link to it. | |
| It'll be right there at the very top of the description box. | |
| I hope you check it out because this one is, in my opinion, something that everyone in America should watch because it's the real historical account of a January 6th prisoner who has been locked up for the past seven months. | |
| Again, that link will be right there at the very top of the description box. | |
| And until next time, I'm your host, Roman, from the Epoch Times. |
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