Dave Smith and Robbie Bernstein dissect Elon Musk's near-completion $44 billion Twitter acquisition, noting a surge in conservative followers like Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan following potential algorithm shifts. They contrast hopes for reinstating banned figures such as Donald Trump with corporate media fears of unchecked abuse, critiquing establishment hypocrisy where policies silence vaccine or election skeptics while protecting controversial allies like Max Boot. Ultimately, the discussion frames the platform's future as a battleground between genuine free speech and selective censorship driven by political interests. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Exactly What Happened00:10:13
What is up, everybody?
It's Robbie the Fire, King of the Cox, Lord of the Sandwiches, and I'm here.
I took over the show doing a couple quick plugs before we start off.
First is late show.
Tickets are still available for the Reno late show, the early two sold out.
Don't be the guy who can't even get in for the late show.
Uh, Pork Fest is now confirmed.
Me and Dave will be back at Porkfest.
Go check out the Free State Project.
They got cool people taking over New Hampshire.
Other than that, Summer Porch Store has kicked off.
First, first Summer Porch tour will be at the Lobster Ranch out in Lady Lake, Florida.
That's next weekend.
And then the following weekend, I will be in Los Angeles.
That's Saturday, May 21st.
And then this Sunday, I will be with the Jersey people celebrating medical freedom with the Meekawks or the LP.
So come hang out for that and more dates coming at you.
Let's get into the show.
Fill her up.
You're listening to the Gash Digital Network.
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Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
You're listening to part of the problem on the Gash Digital Network.
Here's your host, Dave Smith.
What's up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
I'm Dave Smith.
He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein, the king of the caulks.
COVID, Jesus.
It is an interesting day in the world, and I'm glad to be podcasting with you fine people.
Okay, a little bit of a short episode today.
I am pressed for time.
Got the old Legion of Skanks starting in a little bit.
But there's a big development in the world that kind of goes way beyond the world of politics, but certainly is pretty damn big in the world of politics.
And that is, of course, Rob, Elon Musk looks like he did it.
Looking for freedom.
And it's already awesome.
It really is kind of already awesome.
So there's a lot of moving parts here.
Obviously, we did a show last week about the prospect of Elon Musk buying Twitter when he had first kind of made the offer.
It was very unclear at the time how serious this was.
If this was just kind of posturing, this was just kind of, you know, getting his name out there, making a point that he wanted to make.
Over the last few days, it became more and more clear that that's not at all what's going on.
The first step was when he actually cleared the capital.
So he got basically, I think he, was it 45 bill that it finally came down to?
And it was something like in the ballpark, I think he borrowed like 20 bill, a little 20 billion dollar mortgage, because those monthly payments have to be rough, but not for Elon Musk.
And then he liquidated enough capital to have, you know, the rest available.
And it was like, oh, okay, well, if he's making that move, then there's something serious to this.
And then as of yesterday, it looks like it's officially been agreed to.
Now, according to Forbes magazine, there's still a vote coming up on this next month from the shareholders.
However, the deal has been preliminarily accepted.
And it now looks like Twitter would owe Elon Musk a billion dollars if the deal doesn't go through and vice versa.
He owes them a billion dollars if it doesn't go through.
So at this point, although it's being reported this way, it's not exactly official, but it's pretty damn close to official that Elon Musk has bought Twitter.
Pretty damn interesting story.
Have you been on Twitter much since it was announced?
Yeah, I tweeted not that much, but I did tweet the other day and I think got the most the biggest tweet I've ever picked up 100 followers in one day.
I'm noticing more engagement on my stuff.
I think it's pretty clear that some of the algorithms that were shadow banning stuff have already been turned off.
Well, there's a lot, there's a lot more than just your experience in that department.
There's a lot of people who are all of a sudden picking up a ton of followers.
I've picked up a ton of followers too.
But I also, I tweeted yesterday, it's a private company, bitches, which was my first tweet after all of this.
And it got 53.1,000 likes on it, which I believe is the most liked tweet I've ever done.
It's got, let me see if I can, hold on, let me see.
I think, how do you get to the new tweet activity?
It has 2 million impressions on it.
107,000 enlargements.
It's weird these details you can get on tweets.
Anyway, but yeah, I've noticed my count's been going up rather quickly, much quicker than it usually does in a day or two.
Let me see if, because I know the great Michael Malice was posting about some of these numbers.
So what do we have here?
So Tucker Carlson is up 62,000 followers today.
Joe Rogan is up 63,000 followers today.
Donald Trump Jr. is up 87,000 followers today.
Ted Cruz is up 51,000 followers today.
Now, there's a lot of other people as well, too, that this is happening too.
And so I don't exactly know.
Nothing's officially been said like what's been changed.
And I don't really even understand.
I was looking, trying to research this.
It's not exactly clear.
Like, is Elon Musk operationally in control of Twitter already?
What are they doing?
Hiding in their tracks.
Yeah.
Well, that might be part of it too, that they're kind of preparing for this new regime to take over and don't want it to be exposed.
So that's right.
Like now, clearly, just to be clear about this, I understand Elon Musk is not the sole owner of Twitter right now, although he will be.
And if according to his plans, his plan is to take it private and make it a free speech platform.
We can get into that a little bit more.
But he is already currently the majority shareholder.
And now he's the majority shareholder who is going to be the sole shareholder going forward.
You just wonder what type of influence now that would allow you to wield behind the scenes.
You know what I'm saying?
I mean, imagine working for a company where the guy who's the majority shareholder is about to be your boss.
You know, if he wants you to do something, or even if you just think he wants you to do something, you might be a little bit more likely to do it.
Who knows?
It's hard.
It's hard to say exactly what is the explanation for this, but something clearly has happened.
Even for big accounts like that, they don't get that many followers in a day.
That's not normal.
You know what I mean?
So this is a whole very interesting dynamic to a situation that is really like, I mean, I don't mean to overstate it, but I don't think I am.
I think it's a really profound part of our society today.
And there's, look, whether or not there are still questions up in the air here.
And one of the major questions is like, exactly, what is Elon Musk going to do?
He hasn't, you know, he's said that Twitter should be for free speech, but what exactly does he mean by that?
What, you know, is he really going to be, you know, a man of his word and do what he said he's going to do?
If so, what exactly does that mean?
You know, there's, you could think there's like a range of possibilities here of what he could possibly do.
And they range all the way from nothing.
He doesn't actually do anything.
And people still end up getting booted off Twitter, you know, for whatever reason.
Maybe just a lot of the same people still work there.
Maybe he's not as good at running the company as he thinks.
He could run it into the ground.
That's possible too.
A lot of people could leave Twitter and it's just not the same thing.
That's also a possibility.
But the possibilities also could be that Twitter is just a much more free place where people aren't getting kicked off as quickly.
Another possibility, and this one would really shake things up.
And man, would this really put Elon Musk into the crosshairs of being like the most villainized person by the powers that be?
That Elon Musk could potentially restore all previously banned accounts.
I mean, you very easily, like, again, I don't know.
All of this is kind of speculation, but it doesn't seem that crazy that if this guy says that, then maybe Donald Trump is back and Alex Berenson is back and Milo Yiannopoulos is back and like a lot of these people, you know, who have been kicked off of Twitter.
And no matter where you stand on the issue of Twitter booting people off, which I personally think that forget the legality of it or anything like that, like what you think the political or legal solution to it should be.
Just the spirit of anybody who thinks that opposing views should be silenced, I think you're just on team bad guy.
That doesn't mean you have to believe they should be forced, you know, Twitter should be forced to not boot people off or something like that.
But if you root or approve of your political opponents being silenced, I just think you're on the bad team.
The good guys are the ones who want people to be able to express themselves.
The Stamps.com Sponsor Plug00:02:42
That's kind of how I see it.
But regardless of that, regardless of how you see it, I think it'd be pretty hard to deny that would be a huge deal, right?
That'd be a huge deal if he just let Trump back on Twitter.
Like, and start to think about this, right?
Like the ramifications of that.
Trump is right now certainly either the frontrunner or tied for frontrunner for the Republican nominee for president of the United States in 2024, right?
There's really no, it's him and DeSantis, right?
Isn't that, is there anyone else who you could argue is even up there with them?
And just think about the way that would change things.
You know, like this is, it's such a profound change.
It's in some ways, you don't even, and I know Trump has his own social media company now.
That was a big flop.
And I think he's said, I think he's said that he doesn't want to come back.
Forget any of that stuff.
Just think about it like this.
When you think about what if Donald Trump came back, had his account restored and started dropping Twitter bombs again, like he used to.
How much that changes the dynamic of him versus Joe Biden in the head to head?
And when you think about that, you almost start to realize in a different way how much it changed the dynamic that they booted him off, right?
Like it just, this really changes things.
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Audience Reaction Explained00:08:43
There are people who, you know, like Milo Yiannopoulos is another example of this.
So just one, I mean, there's tons, but he's just one that I think of where he was for this period of time in like 2000, I think it was like 2015, 16, 17, like that time.
He was like one of the major kind of internet guys.
He was affecting the national conversation.
Now, you may like that or not like that.
I think that's that is almost beside the point.
The point is that him being booted off Twitter changes that.
He is no longer one of those guys.
I'm sure Milo does a show somewhere on some platform.
But if you can't get on any of the big things, at least as of now, with the one exception of Joe Rogan, and I guess Spotify is still a huge platform, but and Rogan still has the clips on YouTube and stuff.
But with the exception of Joe Rogan, I've never really seen anyone go, you know, get, I mean, he didn't get kicked off, he left.
I guess Alex Jones.
Yeah, not as big, not as relevant, not as growing, but he has a platform.
Yes, he did not, he was not completely destroyed by it.
But Alex Jones has been just incredibly minimized by the fact that he's kicked off all of the major platforms.
He's much, much smaller than he used to be.
But you're right.
Most of them almost seemingly disappear from the national conversation.
These are people who had, you know, big audiences.
And in many ways, a lot of them kind of drove the conversation, at least in some, you know, amongst some people.
And so that would just be really fascinating if that were to be allowed for all of those people to come back.
Again, all of this stuff is far off, or not, I shouldn't say far off.
All of this stuff is a big if.
It depends on a lot of things, and we don't know.
We're not there yet.
Lots of things can happen in between now and then.
And a lot of it will just depend on what Elon Musk wants to do.
Feel however you feel about that.
That's the situation, for better or for worse.
That we're this is all kind of relying on, you know, is this guy telling the truth?
What's he really motivated by?
What does he really plan on doing?
And does he change his mind?
So a lot of unknowns there.
But it's kind of, at least to me, an exciting possibility for a lot of different reasons.
And it's not that I agree 100% with the politics of any of the people that I just named, but I do recognize that if that were to happen, that is, in my opinion, the greatest defeat to the establishment in my lifetime.
I think it's more, it's way a way bigger defeat of the establishment than Donald Trump being elected president.
I think it's like way bigger than that.
I mean, the fact is that the way this new kind of crumbling regime has been able to at least temporarily stop the bleeding of the kind of like populist, both left and right uprisings in this country has been through control of social media.
And for one of the major ones, and Twitter isn't the biggest, but it's one of the big, for one of the big ones to go in this different direction, it just changes everything, you know?
And they know that.
The establishment knows that.
That's why you're seeing the response that you're seeing from this.
It's, you know, when everything is kind of moving this way, and all of a sudden there's one example of something going back.
No, we're going to go back to like kind of what the internet used to be.
That's, that's a big deal.
And the other thing that's a big deal about it is that even if it's just Twitter right now, this does the fact that one of these companies could do that changes something in the imagination of regular people.
And it'll be amplified if it works.
And what I mean by that is if there's more engagement, Twitter starts making more money.
All of a sudden, conservative people are growing their audiences and able to grow on, you know, go on the road, sell more tickets.
And all of a sudden, you know, you got momentum.
All of a sudden, things are popular.
You know, like it really works to try and pretend like people don't like things and to keep money out of it.
So it really could work.
And then that will make a very difficult atmosphere for, I mean, Donald Trump won off of Twitter.
That's one of the reasons he won the election was that he had a direct, you know, direct relationship with people and that he was able to just speak his mind and tweet.
Well, it's it was that was a huge part of it.
And another big part of it was that he was able to constantly set the conversation with Twitter.
So he was always able to.
Obama was not a citizen.
I didn't lose any elections.
Yeah.
Well, that's the thing, right?
Is that he was always able to solve hurricanes.
Right.
But he was always able to dictate what the corporate press was going to talk about.
And he did that very intelligently and very shrewdly.
Like he really, he, he knew, I meant to say intentionally and shrewdly.
He knew what would get them talking all the time.
And he knew how to push everybody's buttons and this, this.
And everyone's ratings were good.
Everyone was winning.
It was working for everybody.
Yeah, right.
That guy, he was basically, he was, it was like in a different world.
He was the TV exec who was kind of setting what everyone was going to cover.
And he came in with the most interesting bullshit.
It was, it's really Donald Trump's only legitimate talent.
It's not like leadership or even business or certainly not being president.
It was just like he's like the greatest self-promoter ever.
And he knew how to make it like a show.
He knows how to make the Donald Trump show.
Good at storylines.
Hey, there's Mexican rapists.
They're going to rape your grandmother.
Hey, the China's taking advantage of us.
Hey, your president's not even a citizen.
I mean, he's coming at it with some great bullshit.
Well, and there is something really look, man.
There's something always from the very beginning of the Trump, you know, campaign for president.
One of the things that was the most interesting about it was just what, like the reaction that he provoked and how much that would expose the establishment to almost like give up their position.
I say give up, I mean reveal, like to reveal their position.
It's like, oh, so that's really where you are, you know, and it's it wasn't until like this got this big buffoon got this reaction out of you that we all saw that, you know?
And so anyway, there's something about all of this that's just really interesting.
And I think it's given a lot of people, you know, and a big part of this is, I was going to say, I think it's given a lot of people hope, people who feel like they're marginalized.
And a lot of the kind of disconnect here is around who people consider to be the powerful and who they consider to be the marginalized.
That's like one of the major disconnects if you listen to like the corporate press talking heads freaking out about all of this.
That's a major thing.
Even if you listen to just regular people who are like, think that there should be this censorship on Twitter and people should be booted off.
It's a disagreement in a different way of looking at like who really are the people who are being marginalized, who are not.
So just for an example, that what's her name, that god-awful Lorenz was her name, that reporter that we've been shitting on a couple of times in the last couple of weeks.
You know, one of the things that we were talking about, Taylor Lorenz, right?
One of the things we were talking about in the first video when we were making fun of her faking that crying little performance that she did is that our first reaction was just kind of like, oh yeah, these are the real victims of the world.
You know, fucking writers for the Washington and Post, who certainly grew up in an upper middle class family and now has a cushy job, like, you know, and she feels so bad for herself.
She's like, you have no idea what it's like to be harassed online.
But then, of course, when she's doxing the lady who runs the libs of TikTok, right?
What was her justification for that?
If you read that article, well, but if you read the article, what was really her justification that she lays out in the first few paragraphs?
Bank Novo Banking Offer00:02:10
This woman's so powerful.
No, she was saying this woman's so powerful.
She was saying this woman is now driving what, you know, Tucker Carlson says.
And she tweets this.
And then all of a sudden, Laura Ingram is talking about it.
And she's become this major force in right-wing politics, right?
So her argument is like, this is a powerful person.
I'm this marginalized, oppressed, bullied, you know, harassed person.
She is this power.
However, to me, the much more reasonable way to look at that, and certainly the way we look at that is like, this is some lady.
You write for the Washington Post.
You're the one in a position of power with this institution behind you.
This woman is some woman tweeting and she's gotten big because everyone likes what she has to say.
Or a lot of people like what she has to say.
I should rephrase.
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Fear of Private Twitter00:07:41
What you'll see from the corporate press and a lot of the kind of just people who like modern woke progressivism has kind of infiltrated their way of thinking, whether they realize it or not.
If they talk about who's oppressed, it always has to come down to like, well, women, minorities, people of color, LGBTQ people, these are oppressed people.
Straight white men are always the oppressors.
So I reject all of that.
And I think that obviously, I think if you're just thinking about it, life is much more complex than that.
And like, you know, like whatever it's easy examples to give are like, you know, Obama's daughters are not more oppressed than some trucker in Iowa.
They're just not.
Doesn't matter if he's a straight white guy and they're black women.
You know what I mean?
Even if one of them was a lesbian and then they're a female person of color, LGBTQ person, they're still like way more privileged than a straight white guy who's just like a blue collar worker.
It's just undeniable to me.
And so I think that plays a role in this here where from my perspective, I think that the people who are celebrating and are really excited about this, even if they might be getting excited before a little bit prematurely, I think a lot of them are marginalized in a way.
These are people who feel like they can't speak their mind in their own freaking country, in the United States of America.
They're like, I can't get on Twitter and just say what I want to say.
And people reduce this down to, you know, like you hear this a lot for people who kind of justify the censorship.
They'll be like, oh yeah, you can't go scream the N-word on Twitter or boo-hoo or something like that.
But it's like, that's not really what we're talking about.
I mean, we're talking about you can't like, you know, challenge the lockdowns or question the vaccine or have questions about the election.
This isn't like just being a horrific, horrible person.
It's like, even if you think someone's wrong, like they're incorrect in any of those assessments, the fact that they're like, I can't even say it.
I can't say it without constantly having a warning on my tweet, then being shadow banned, then being banned, like all this shit.
So to me, it's like, it's interesting to see those people feeling so like optimistic that maybe they get to get back into the conversation.
I mean, God, it's like we have like the worst people in the fucking world are still allowed to be in this Twitter conversation.
So Max Boot and Bill Crystal are still allowed to go, hey, hey, guys, I found a few more poor people I'd like to, you know, murder.
Hey, let's go.
I got a new village I want to drop bombs on.
That guy who's been saying that for 30 years, he's allowed to be there.
But what?
The person who questions the election can't be?
Even the person who doesn't question it, even the person who knows, you know, it was stolen or something like that.
That guy has to get kicked off, but freaking Max Boot could stay on.
It's a very weird, you know, dynamic, very difficult to defend when you actually look at it in its full context.
Anyway, no matter what happens with all of this, I hope that all decent people can agree that it's been goddamn glorious watching the meltdowns.
It's the greatest thing since 2016.
It really is.
It's just unbelievable.
We got, what do we got?
Some clips here that here was this one was the Ari Fleischer, what's his name?
The guy from MSNBC.
This one was pretty delicious.
Rob, you sent it to me.
Let's play that one.
You don't even have to be transparent.
You could secretly ban one party's candidate or all of its candidates, all of its nominees, or you could just secretly turn down the reach of their stuff and turn up the reach of something else.
And the rest of us might not even find out about it till after the election.
Elon Musk says this is all to help people because he is just a free speech, Philosophically clear, open-minded helper.
So, what a, what an interesting hypothetical that he lays out there.
Huh.
Never really thought about it like that before, Rob.
I suppose that could happen.
I mean, this is all just hypothetical, some distant new world.
It only could happen when Elon Musk owns it.
But man, that really is true.
They could, I don't know, ban groups of people from one political group while allowing people from the other political group to stay on.
They could maybe even, I don't know, just turn down your reach.
And so your voice can't be amplified to as many people.
And you wouldn't even know.
They could maybe even like censor a story that you wouldn't find out about till after the election.
Man, thank God none of that happens.
Because this is a scary prospect.
Can you believe, Rob, that he could say this out loud?
Like, is it, it really is something where you go, so, okay, I guess you're just lying through.
You're either, there's only two options here.
You're either lying through your teeth or you are so clueless about this.
Like you are covering a topic that you have looked into so little that you don't even realize what the, what the other side is saying.
Because every, obviously, is the joke, every potential fear that he's worried about is what we've already been living under.
Every one of them.
I mean, it's not, there's no secret here.
Like there's been a sitting member, a sitting president of the United States has been kicked off of all social media.
A sitting member of Congress has been kicked off of social media.
Lots of other shenanigans have happened, you know, whether whatever.
Google is probably the biggest one, but right with Tulsi Gabbard, where after her debate performance, Google just removed her ads.
I mean, there's all this type of shit goes on all over the place.
But to say, you know, that the big fear is, and, you know, by the way, he's not completely wrong.
There is truth to saying, like, man, if Elon Musk owns this whole thing and takes it private, then this one guy gets to just dictate a huge, you know, amount of how people receive information.
It's like, yeah, that is true.
But he's doing it with the promise to not do that.
Now, I'm not saying that that guarantees he's not going to do that.
Maybe he will.
I don't freaking know Elon Musk.
I don't know what's in his heart or what ends up being in his heart.
But it really is something to just say, hey, this is the fear.
And so all of a sudden, this is a fear, even though it's been happening.
Maybe it's because been happening in the direction that you're comfortable with.
I think these, they're very convinced that they're on the side of the noble and the right.
And even though it's not what he's saying, I think what he's even communicating to the listeners of his show, because he can't quite say it is, hey, we were cheating.
And since we were able to cheat, we were able to win.
And this might get in the way of our ability to cheat, which means wink, wink, it might be a lot harder for us to win.
I think that's really the message he's trying to get across.
No, there almost is this undertone.
Like it's like the closing statements in a time to kill.
You remember that movie?
Like it's almost like now picture she's white.
Like he's almost going like, now picture they're Democrats.
Imagine all this shit that's happening right now, but picture it happening against us.
Even though, of course, Elon Musk isn't saying I'm going to do this to Democrats.
He's been tweeting, hey, I hope all of my critics stay on Twitter.
They have a right to criticize me.
They have a right to be here.
You know, like, so that, you know, it's not like that.
But his fear is almost that like, it's not just that, like, oh, we lose these tactics.
He's like, but what if these tactics are done to us?
Then we're screwed.
I also love MSNBC.
CrowdHealth Insurance Deal00:02:48
They got, they got good acting classes over there because it's all the same delivery, like a parent that's real disappointed with their child.
Like they all got it from like Rachel Maddow, but it's him.
It's also the guy that is there with the cheating wife that he left for like that.
Oh, Joe Scarborough.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They all got the same bullshit delivery of I can't believe this is.
Oh my God.
Let's all, we should be so upset.
You know?
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, it's true.
It's a very weird type of person that is able is willing and able to pull this off.
I don't know, but yeah, it's really something to say.
Well, Rachel Maddow is just an entertainer, so they must get pretty good acting classes over there.
That's right.
It's funny, people always bring that up about Tucker Carlson, but Rachel Maddow used the exact same defense in court.
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Scared to Join Free Speech00:09:38
All right, let's get back into the show.
Okay, we got another clip.
I can't remember.
What was this other one, Rob?
I don't remember either.
All right, let's play it.
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.
Isn't that quite an interesting little admission there?
You go, well, we're always in the business of silencing people on social media.
And I assume we'll continue doing that.
But we could also have Congress make sure we silence people on social media.
It is unbelievable how much of a threat it is to the establishment to simply have Americans allowed to express their opinion to other Americans who would like to hear it.
And it's amazing the argument that they are trying to make is that, yeah, obviously we're all for free speech.
You got to have free speech.
It's a foundation, but you can't really, it's got to be protected free speech.
It's got to be within certain parameters, otherwise it becomes dangerous.
And so even here, she's walking this line where she's so convinced that total free speech would be dangerous.
Now, obviously, you and I understand it's dangerous to her and the regime, but it would be dangerous.
So, well, don't worry.
We currently policed it.
We always have policed it.
And if necessary, Congress will do what it needs to do to make sure that it remains policed.
In other words, we're taking a stance against free speech and we're going to do everything we can to ensure that we can police this.
Did you hear?
I don't have the clip ready, but what Brian Stelter said about it.
He said he used like an analogy in his weird, bizarre Brian Stelter way.
And he goes, Well, I mean, let's say you were invited to a party and there's absolutely no rules at this party.
People can do whatever they want to at this party.
Would you want to go to that party or would you maybe stay home?
You know, and this was his analogy, which, you know, obviously just like the dumbest fucking analogy ever.
Because I mean, a million different ways.
Like, number one, you can control what's on your Twitter feed.
You can block and mute and whoever you want to and follow whoever you want to.
So the analogy just doesn't fit.
But it's also funny to like, especially have the CNN guy, you know, it's like CNN just launched their product where they spent $500 million and got 10,000 followers or they got 10,000 subscribers and then just it collapsed.
And he's out there being like, well, people won't want to go to this.
And it's like, all right, well, here's the beautiful thing about freedom.
There's one way to find out.
It's one way to find out if people would want to go to a free speech platform or not.
Oh, here.
Yeah, Brian, you could play it.
That's a, that's an example of a broader question for Twitter, which is, if you, if you get invited to something where there are no rules, where there is total freedom for everybody, do you actually want to go to that party or are you going to decide to stay home?
And that's a question for Twitter users.
Some Twitter users might love the idea there's going to be absolutely no moderation and no rules at all.
Others might not want to be anywhere near that.
Am I crazy, Matt?
No, no, you're right.
And what happens to the advertising?
I mean, if there's no moderation or little moderation, do the advertisers stay away?
What does that do to the business prospects for Twitter itself?
And that's very much an well, I mean, again, just such a fucking stupid analogy.
And so just Brian Selzer is such a bizarre guy, the way he even like laughs after asking that question.
And it's like, it's just such an obvious, like, like you're doing mental gymnastics to demonize freedom.
You know, it's like, well, what if there was just so much freedom at this event?
Would you still want to go to it?
I mean, yeah, lots of people do like to go to events with free people there who are able to speak their mind.
Yes.
Now, you know, the implication there is almost like what?
That they could be violent.
They could do whatever they wanted to do.
It's like, yeah, well, no one's violent on Twitter.
It's online.
It's an app on your phone.
It's not, you're not going to get punched in the face or a chair thrown at you.
Threats of violence are illegal and almost certainly will not be allowed.
Aside from that, it's like, what?
There might be things that you don't like being said.
See, the thing that's so interesting about this perspective is that it's so obviously skewed.
This is one of the things that was really interesting that was revealed way back when Jack Dorsey and his lawyer went on Joe Rogan with Tim Poole is that what's so revealed is that it's like, yeah, this is from your perspective.
See, from your perspective, if you have the things that you don't want to see are all being censored, and you're like, I don't know.
I mean, do people really want to go and not see that?
But from tens of millions of Americans' perspective, they're seeing all types of shit that they don't want to see on Twitter all the time.
So again, I guess we'll see.
We'll see who wants this.
Can you imagine if you were told, hey, you're going to go to a party with your friends, but your party has to abide by Brian Steltzer's party rules?
Yeah.
Can you imagine?
You're like, wait, so I can't just get together with my friends and have fun the way I like to have fun.
No, no, Rob, you can.
You have to do it my way.
Fake news in the media.
He's, yeah, dude.
It's really bizarre.
It's bizarre to watch all of these guys.
And the triggering alone is going to be worth it.
But they are really concerned.
Don't get it twisted on that.
I believe we have one more clip, no?
Elon Musk is also a notorious Twitter troll, but he won't have to worry about being banned anymore since he just made a deal to buy the company for $44 billion.
Musk laid out his vision for the social media site during a recent interview.
Watch.
Twitter has become kind of the de facto town square.
So it's just really important that people have both the reality and the perception that they're able to speak freely within the bounds of the law.
A good sign as to whether there's free speech is someone you don't like allowed to say something you don't like.
And if that is the case, then we have free speech.
Well, for some reason, a lot of people on the right are celebrating this as a big win for free speech.
But the left loves free speech too, don't we?
So why are conservatives so excited over Musk taking over, Sonny?
We pause.
The more interesting question would be: so why is the left so upset about it?
If we're fans of free speech, are we challenging?
What is there?
Could we challenge his definition?
Because the question you asked answers itself, right?
If we all like free speech, why is the right so excited about this?
Who's like, oh, because they're the ones getting censored, right?
So that's obvious.
But then, right, as you said, the more obvious and interesting question is: so, why is anyone upset about this then?
If we all agree with free speech.
All right, so let's, we'll play a little bit more of this that we got to run.
So let's just go back to the video.
Yeah, start with you.
I think Twitter can be a really horrible place.
And I think people are excited because he is sort of going to unleash the trolls, right?
I think he is saying, you get to say whatever you want.
I'm going to take away the guardrails.
And for me, that is something that is a bit scary.
And I think it's going to be scary to a lot of women because there have been some surveys done and 38% of women around the world have said that they have been on the receiving end of a lot of abuse on Twitter.
85% of women have said that they have seen the abuse.
And what's interesting to me about Twitter is only 22% of adults are on Twitter in the world.
And that's from a 2019 Pew study.
And so Twitter is not the real world.
And in fact, on Twitter, it is predominantly straight white men.
So when Elon Musk says, wow, this is about free speech.
It seems to me that it's about free speech of straight white men.
And so let them have a lot of people.
We can stop it right there.
I mean, I think it's pretty funny to go.
Only 20% of adults are on Twitter.
Like, it's a pretty huge percentage of adult people being on Twitter anyway.
But yeah, this is just, and then of course, well, what's the answer here?
Well, he's racist.
See, one of the things that's beautiful about this, man, is it's almost like, Rob, as you kind of alluded to, even the way Joy Behar has to like present it, they're exposing themselves so much.
It's like, oh, we all believe in free speech.
So what's the problem here?
It's like, racism, you know, I thought there was a real turning point with the Rogan thing when all these people were calling Joe Rogan racist and like no one believes that Joe Rogan is a racist person.
No one thinks Joe Rogan's racist.
I mean, okay, some people probably do, but like the vast majority of people, 100% of reasonable people are like, yeah, this guy's not a racist person.
What are you talking about?
And these things, it's so funny that now it's so clear that the issue here has nothing to do with race, that for them to try to bring it back to that or sex or any of that, it's just obvious.
They are very scared, and they're not scared of trolls, they're not scared of Russian disinformation, they're not scared of any of that.
They're scared that their political opponents might have a voice again.