Fake Nazi Story, Trump Wins Iowa & Banned Words | Pirate Wires Podcast #30 🏴‍☠️
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There is a cost to us as a news organization of knowingly broadcasting untrue things. Huge naughty problem, internet being catalist ed by a sub stack, the native platform first. Well, there are no notes, I think have an extremist. It's the person who wants control of platform, who determine what can a canopy said, we know what our solution is, is like jagoda control over what can and cannot be said on twitter.

I may have done a really good job of self driving through this all thing, the video of Rachel matto extraordinary ily maternal ism and says, you know, we're not even going to show trump speech.

as we have been discussing for weeks now, have a kind of freedom that we haven't had in a handful of years on social media. Pretty sure this is kind of a slr still, but the word is. Welcome back to the pod guys.

We GTA packed show for you today. But first I want to start with a, or today I want to start with these nazis. We've got this huge nazi problem on the internet.

You've probably read about IT all of IT being catalyzed by a sub stack, the native platform. Uh, I learned to all of this from fame nazi hunter, uh, casey newton first, while there no noises there like no substate nosis. The story begins in the pages of the atlantic back in november.

Uh, they publish the peace on sort of subjects, not the problem. And the author of that peace references, I think, sixteen different sub stacks on the platform sites. One person making A A full time living, one nac famous nai making a full time living on the platform.

Um craig, this sort of massive moral panic, uh this has been going on kind of surrounding subsection moral panic surrounding subsection, the kind of people who are posting on subsection, which is for folks I guess not extremely online like us uh, a newsletter platform. So poor wires uh, has been using subject from its inception. So are many writers including barry activists like ref o um mountain people who is the woman ah does anyone remember the name, the one the number one earners SHE does like reporting.

It's like history of history .

that from amErica that's .

the one i'm talking about. So it's like a very diverse a diverse service, but it's a it's a news letter platform and A I think IT as IT became popular, you know maybe three years ago among folks who were looking to not be the platform, which is just a fact, right?

Like I was on twitter, uh, thinking about where I was going to writing longer form and um or even just producing things longer form, I think originally was a podcast I had called problematic and A I didn't want to monetize IT with patron because patron was newly people left and right from the platform. I wanted people who kind of um not only not only kind of walking or talking to talk on free speech, but could not actually stop me and so they think about a newsletter platform that a gives you control of your email list. Is this really nothing that they can do that? A I mean, yeah, I will be kind of annoyed if they were to dept t form pirret wires and some alternatives tion were subject wanted do so.

But if they did, I would have my email list and I could go to somewhere else. That was what was important to me. Um but I think what people sort of anti tech press and the processes people they correctly spotted a place where subversive thought, certainly things that they don't like, could proliferate.

Now that includes, of course, everything sort of right of a josep stelle in but we often have this conversation about like White nationalism that's the easy one that everybody agrees is horrible and so that's the one that they focus on ah and that's what the atlantic focused on. And I I think the high level thing here is happening is an attempt to really take substantia table in advanced the next election um but uh sort of I guess in in the short term, what this did was uh generate a conversation about what's going on, on the platform. IT continues earlier this year, january with casey new picks IT up um investigates himself, confirms that there is notes on the platform sort of demands that substate changes rules to remove the nazis from the platform.

Um then comes Jessie, single Jessie reporting sort of contextualized this. What he discovers is casey noon. The native hunter actually, in his research only found six platforms that consist sort had White supreme es content um none of them were making money on the platform.

There was one I think that was making money through like another service somehow related to you the platform of and in aggregate, all six of these are of these substances um lead less fig around a hundred readers. So for contacts, pirate virus has something like sixty five thousand at this point. Um for for further context, casey newton, the nai hunter has something like a hundred and seventy thousand.

So basically we invented an entire moral panic surrounding notes to target substate, to kind of convince ed people to ban to run from the platform to fleet the platform. Um and uh it's work a bit. A lot of people left, a lot of cases on readers left and and then he himself left, I think to say face because ultimately the substate refused to change its policies.

They ban five of the six accounts that he surface based on their own preexisting policy, which was a interest incitement of violence um and they change nothing. They actually, I mean hamers at one point really just his response to the initial controversy was just like we had here to the first amendment, which I really did find like shockingly based um they don't care. They kind of that every turn refused to relent in in in this a in in controversies like bees in this class of controversy. They they'd here to the first dammit they are they will to platform incitement of violence but they believe that their role is not to determine what does and does not constitute um legitimate political speech. And I don't know what guys guys make IT .

the native understory IT gives like i'm leaving twitter vibes there was there was a big, big round of people according to leaving saying a sub stack was full. Avoid the premises, something like a year ago or a year and a half ago. Um remember her Taylor Lauren LED the charge now I think if you got to a twitter account, her literal name is follow me on like subscribe to my sub stack cards in her bio and all caps or something like that or was for quite a long time this strange trains writer called jude doo, I believe, was helping lead the charge back then to get off sub stack and the funniest thing is, which happened this time too, is they all went to ghost, which has .

its is probably .

way more Whites to premises. The nazis was built to house, not one to say ever not establishment.

And I don't want to say that afford A, I don't know, I don't know much about the, I want to throwing the one of the native bus, I will say, of ghost when I was considering where to put pie wires round one way back. And I think this was the summer of twenty when I started writing by rewires, every one of my sort of cyp ti and archi and and archives friends insisted that I go to ghost rather than than subject. They were like, you're a total idio.

They're going to the platform. You and I just member thinking like I don't care if they do because I have the emails like that was the mean the only thing that I cared about like if they right now there's sort of walking the wall or talking to talk on on free speech, if they if they pave IT, it's not going to kill me so I modest will trust them for now and I I kind of like them. I like Chris specifically Chris one of the cofounder ers um and now here we are fast forward and it's the anti nates people, the people who see naught in everything, the people who think that we're noses um going to ghost and I think that, by the way, is really essential issue here.

It's like who gets to determine what is and is not extremist you know beyond the pale because for me I hate the Whites of primacy stuff. I hate when I see on twitter right now. I think there's a huge researchers of like the hard core of noxious like there's like trade and there's like the the the idiot trad right um there is a lot of like weird, like ray science and shit I see on there and why why are we doing this um but that to me is just as important as as like real as communism, a hammer and sickle in bio, like straight up the rich ube guilty and kind of thing like that.

Pretty not just pretty. It's like deeply horrific because they actually mean IT and and it's like we used to live in a world on twitter where only half of the horrible things were censored and the left could never be censored that feels you know that's that's dangerous to me um I don't know who needs to make this determination and I know who wants to make the determination. Casey newton wants to make that determination and and that's a dangerous kind of person to me. Like when I think of an extremist, it's the person who wants control of the platform, who wants determine what can I cannot be said and I think of something we have to just resist as like a people as a civilization that believes or hears in any way to the concept of liberty like this is a very important quality in a person to be weary of um you cast out I would say like it's it's a beyond the pale um for me in terms of extremist views that I don't tolerate. It's this ah IT is this power seeking thing that's the thing that that I most worried about people yeah I mean.

I think another really important component of the story to which we touched on a bit earlier is just that this nazi problem doesn't exist at all. Like it's it's not even like we're discussing sub stack, you know has these notes that is permitting a to write on the platform. And monotoned, like I really do think people should go and read JoNathan cats is original article atlantic, because IT is just a textbook example of how to fabricate a story. Mean JoNathan cats essentially violates like every principle of journalistic ethics in that story.

He at one point and you know Jessie single goes through at some of these points and uh has take down of of the original landing piece but he like excerpts a sort of thing from one of these alleged noises um and basically says and this guy is making money on substantive though he's banned from stripe which is a violation of sub stack policies but what IT turns out this guy was doing was he was not monotoned on sub stack. He was using subway bed star which is the third party platform and he says this explicitly in this a this text he he doesn't at all imply that he's making his living on and JoNathan hats then presents IT as um in his article he says, you know this guy launched a free sub stack newsletter months later he set up a payable getting around stripe stands by involving a third party payment processor. The extent to which this work around in cases, presence on sub stack more generally contributed to his livelihood is unclear.

And so just a really like interesting example of how somehow this gets around the atlantics editors who don't like think that this sort of very vague claim that this guy has the third party work around that isn't made explicit. No one's questioning IT and IT goes viral. And then you know a months later case you didn't pick up on IT, but it's just like really shitty journalism and it's insane that I got that far.

The atlantic ic does seem I don't want to give them too much credit, but they do seem hyste ics a little bit Better than this. Um you know casey newton personally on his own has never been Better than this a JoNathan cats. I'd like casey, what we're talking about.

I always, you know I often will put journalist in quotes and call these people activist rather than journalists and it's it's sort of a majority, but it's true, uh, casey noon is an activist. This is an activist tactic. When you investigate a subject and you find out that it's not as bad as originally reported, and then you frame your own story to make IT seem worse than IT was originally reported, that's activism. Like you could go through the things about JoNathan.

Well, JoNathan, not as much as an actual fairly agreeable errors cases is all about emitting the truth, right? It's like he'll MIT very important contacts to make IT same everything from um the number of actual subjects to until until until Jessie forced his hand, he finally revealed the number um to critically the names of them because what I wanted to do when I first was reading about this um from casey was I wanted to go and I wanted to look at the extremist. I actually wanted to take a look at what was being published and I couldn't because he wouldn't publish the names and um and he says the reason he didn't do this and he didn't want to share the numbers and what not was because he felt not safe.

You casey newton s life was in danger by from these subs that notes with in agreed one hundred subscribers total. And I just it's like it's tedious because we know it's happening here. Uh, you're just trying to push a cause and your cause is sub stack is not a safe space, is not a truthful place.

IT is a place for analyze. And this is all kind of laying the ground work for the way that media is going to be discussed throughout the presidential election um in kind of through the back channel. Uh, I have a source at the company that shed a little bit more light what was being demanded and what continues to be demanded, uh, throughout this controversy because subjeck is still getting hit with wave after wave of angry emails about the sub technosis and there are several people they point to.

None of them are the six that, uh, casey services the person who is most people are most angry about and what gone is Chris rufo. He's the extremist they are talking about. But of course, Chris is just an activist who is like anti ei.

He's not a White premises, he said. Not one thing that you could ever interpret as natives. M, ah, and this is how the weapon is always used.

It's like we've got to get rid of these extremists like notes and everyone's like, yeah and they're go and they at order like and Christopher roof. O um who is what? He's just a successful conservative activist. Um yeah. So as I see that I see as I see as a war of activists and and we kind of have to stop calling casey a journalist, not just because I like to be a asal, but because IT confused sort of money. The conversation yeah .

pretty much anywhere where um you can write without corporate, like without um sort of like a liberal editorial line or some sort of like institutional bangor corporate backing or whenever um like that places always going to be accused of basically being the eagles knows. I mean, like I feel like gyve ve seen this for like on twitter, on uh youtube until they struck down but stuff on tour, I i've heard there are not these everywhere. You are a man just a million little basis out everywhere and it's basically anywhere where you can like update post something without um I don't know some H R lady looking over IT like that basically like the stories gonna keep happening. You ve ever you've got IT like it'll there be a story like ten month or something where it's like ghost is get to the new eagles nest and then like then the ghost of they will make a new and then natl be the new eels that's IT just like IT it'll be happening forever as long as like people are able to publish freely entered, which is you know something they fundamentally .

don't want yeah you're touching on the I think they correctly touching on the the broader context of the moderation police. And we've seen them at every single turn for years now. Uh IT is just like what is IT is like the the the Collins the really hysterically and Collins from abc and uh his colleague the x he was a former library and them for getting a blanking on her name now um another super she's like one of the famous and time moderation of course tell of the rends who uh really I don't want to that hard on her.

Librarians are the fastest of our age, by the way, like like librarians and like middle school teachers, like there's something we are going on there.

Um yes, so these are the people who went after just so giant, the social media giant and policies. And they maintained a lot of cultural power in the technical that LED to the religious onion speech censorship rules that we saw through our COVID which were I mean in my opinion without saying too much because we can get flagged by youtube um which is what IT happened to us when we discuss global warming, which by the way, definitely exists in israel please do not fucking demonize this channel.

Um life threatening, I think that the moderation policies could actually be considered like life threatening, the things that we couldn't talk about. We're important to our life. And that is just like you kind of take that problem off the table when you allow people to discuss things.

I guess you do have this problem of not I guess I know that you have this problem of misinformation and disinformation. There is just there is just always a kind of question of what is more dangerous um authoritarians m or the bad sort of wrong facts and that's unfortunately experiment. We can't run twice for civilization and everybody come to land in a different direction there i'm i'm a little bit more freedom ended and um and I would say the ends of the world there are a lot more authoritarian oriented yeah .

and I do think that the people have to let go on the dark webs of doing like download the tour browser to like the to read like a racist, say on the internet that only like is going to further make people extremely us I think you know I mean like it's IT IT adds like a level of like seriousness to what you're looking at. It's like, oh, they really don't want me .

to see this type c point. I think IT depends on how thread IT really is sensor. So in our world where let's say in twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty one, let's say it's like partly answered you know like you could still read the hunter bid and laptop story for example.

You just couldn't share IT on twitter briefly um but the fact that IT was censored and everybody knew was censored radicalized ed people on the subject of one hundred by laptop story and I do think like really accelerated the the radicalization process generally like I mean people freak out at that point when you can't share things, you can still access them elsewhere um IT makes you feel like you know the powers that be here against you uh whether china has done a very good job of actually successfully centering a billion plus people you ever growing. I was super libertarian for very long time and still kind of or and myself that way a bit. And we used to always say like things like information wants to be free and genuine.

They are. We were believed in in the censorship couldn't even happen on internet. I thought that there was no way any more to sensor.

And that was like an inevitable, that we would have freedom of speech. And that was just like the right side of history, let's say. And then I saw just like how well china censored all of those people.

And I got nervous. I think that that is a kind of world that we can really see here. Just this week at davos we saw, uh, the german woman i'm blacking on our name or so IT was like, very german like, yeah it's like a car pushed german name um sort of get up.

No, I looked IT up because I want you to make a joke about the fact that he was like, my grandfather fought nose's. Uh, not. So I would have to listen to the german women tell me what I couldn't cannot say.

And so I had to double check that he is german, german. The bad person is german. So SHE stands up for David and says, this is the biggest problem that we're facing, right? Misinformation, disinformation ah I want to jump ahead of the solutions because we know what her solution is.

IT is like jacqui um control over what can and cannot be said on twitter, which the E U. Is separately like super going after the reason they're all so animated about this right now is because we do, as we have been discussing for weeks now, have a kind of freedom that we haven't had in a handful of years on social media. Um you know you kind of can say whatever you won, we're seeing what that looks like.

It's in deliberating. It's at times like very ugly IT is really of kind of its the truth is what we're saying for for Better and for worse. What do you have to think about that the earth list thing or davin general right, which could may be like seamlessly transition here.

what what they think the outcome is going to be? I mean, people, it's not like trump would not get, I mean, try. Trump was not originally elected because of misinformation. People who were quite aware of the trump was voted him in the office. He's not going to not get elected this time because of some virtual misinformation that misinformed people about trump's ue position.

Well, I think that it's just in the context of uh, like the E U. I think that what they're actually concerned about is some sort of like pop populist right wing um insurgency like through the electoral system because I mean, you have kind of everything that a lot of counties of italy and hungry.

I was I related to misinformation. I guess I am not .

information is anything that you don't like. I think a lot of IT just .

comes down to control over the narrative. And this is why I think that you they they want to target misinformation because it's problematic for their narrative about whether or not it's sort of their political narrative or their environmental narrative or their the is negative, whatever that you know. I think that there is.

This is why when we're talking about solutions to this censorship regime, I think it's not enough actually to just say, you know, these people are censoring information that they find politically problematic for them. I think that there also has to be that's not. People know that, right? And they sort of that doesn't really inspire emotion. I think what what needs to happen is for there to be a counter narrative like in the case of the substance note thing, for example, it's not just that like this narrative is that there's these extremist nauseum like there's some you know false falsehoods in this narrative is that there's this activist class of as you're sing salona like journalists um and blogger basically who have like on some of our financial interest in creating these false stories yeah and so that's the counter narrative that I think people can then understand and get behind .

the casey hired um this journalist is zoey shiffer who we've covered at pie wires a handful of times and I noticed after a while that I kept and I was always by accident I I would cover a crazy story about unhinged activists typically inside of A A company like apple um and I would see that I mean after a couple of days I realized that was always always the same IT was so a shiffer every single time and the game there is you have like a very small group of people who are totally disconnected with reality at working of these companies, of giant, of these giant tech companies.

They want very crazy things. For example, my favorite one ever was the demand internally for tim cook to speak out about israel and palestine. They want denunciation of israel.

And this was several years ago. This was before the most recent one. So they admit this denunciation, uh, and this leaked to zoe ships. But what, of course, happened was she's friends with these people, and they hit her up and they're like, hey, this is the crazy thing we're doing this month.

Can you write a story about IT? May be they don't say explicit like that, but um they offer after and he wants to write about IT because he wants apple to speak up about israel and palestine. This is an exciting story to her because she's she's a left wing activist um so he does her job.

He writes about IT. And now that seems like this is a big story like this is a major deal. We're putting pressure on tim cook to say something about israel done. Now this one was sufficiently epic ve that IT never happened. But that's not the case.

Usually a antonio Garcia Martina is another story that be rote about, another story that zoo shifter was big part of uh, also fired from apple for this and are up for this for uh for writing a book chaos monkeys about facebook uh in which and it's like a kind of a gang zoe book so it's it's written a super literary style and we meet a couple of off color comments, not a comments. So he just describe women in a sexual way in a couple of passes. It's it's a literary book.

I it's one awards, the best selling novel. Um he gets fired and that happens why it's like people are really upset internally. Uh, some activists say, who do they say? IT too, they say to a journalist, is also upset about the existence of antonio Martinez, who, separate from his book, was also published.

Or tweet things that were a little bit right of center um or a little bit critical of, I don't know there are red of center. He was just like sort of critical of the kind of, uh, woke industrial complex and and that's a really why he was targeted and and that's what these people are doing. This is truly the game.

IT is like, how do we make IT seem like there is this, uh, huge moral issue that the whole country needs to get behind to make a company act in a manner that we want and that's on every topic from firing around a person that we don't like because he tweet things that make us angry to uh in instantiation like incredibly racist and sexist aggressive hiring practices which these people also want. Um I don't know how you get people excited about that, but that is what's happening. We should move on to truck.

Let's talk about crump. Doubt trump. Absolute grand slam in iwa. Massive Victory for him.

People expressed surprise and I said, don't really know why he was polling this way is the big surprise was that but the antis came out a little bit ahead of nicki Haley in second place where people sort of expected to be a little bit behind her in third vivid out of the race um immediately kissed the dollar trampling on stage and is going to be a big probably surgit for trump throughout the rest of the election because he wants to be the vice president. I don't know what is really even left to clean here. There's a question of the media's involvement.

I saw people saying, hey, that looks like icing him out of the media didn't work. I don't think the media really did that. I think trump didn't really want to be in the press.

He's not even on twitter, and it's because he didn't have to bit right like he he was absolutely winning. The real thing, the real reason that is, I think this runaway train is because the entire country feels like the democrats are trying to use the state to keep matter of the race. And that makes them feel like the countries is being taken from them.

And so they feel I think I know ons of people who who are who are voting specifically for that reason. They feel like this is an apparent abuse of power. And whether or not you can make some argument that IT is really, I think that's the kind of motivation.

I think that's it's generating the real energy behind campaign, not him because he's not even been saying anything. Whatever you any thoughts about this? I feel like you've been falling in closely.

I mean, there's like an immense amount of loyalty to tribe. I think that the prosecutions against them have probably helped more than theyve heard in terms. So because we're talking about republication base, most of them are not even like on twitter or anything like this is its mostly older people. They're like watching fox news, which is um I guess not as transferences as I once were but I mean they're so you know they still like and also to be quite honest, as many people have run and they're public in primary. There's not there's nobody who is really as talented as trb.

There's nobody who is um speaks to the they are all competing ting for the same sort of sliver of voters who would prefer somebody other than triumph which is mostly like college educated uh more middle house republicans to a shrinking portion of the base is increasingly more working class, less educated um and more populist. And when you have the scientists who ran on like a about the internet issues, or you have niki hai, who's just kind of like a war monger like that, does really speak to the basically public in party, which just, you know, wants to see the media humility, wants important wall and wants to be entertained and do not started. Nicky hailey is not entertaining.

It's funny to think of because I don't know this is true, not IT feels true. IT feels true that the republican base does just see the media humiliated publicly. I think that was the appeal of of a vivid he was very good um trashing a journalist in an interview. I I just think the media .

is done a really good job of of self humility throughout this whole thing. Mean the the video of Rachel matto after you know trump won the caucus um where she's just extraordinary ily peta n alister and says you we're not even going to show trump speech.

just have to do a little bit business just first second at this point in the evening, the projected winner of the I caucuses has just started giving his Victory speech we will keep in I on that as that happens, we will let you know if there's any news mate, in that speech if there's anything no, where are these these something subsidy and important.

The reason i'm saying this is, of course, there is a reason that we another news organizations, have generally stopped giving an unfiltered live platform to reMarks by former president trump, but is not out of spite. IT is not a decision that we relish. IT is a decision that we regularly revisit. And honestly, honestly, IT is not an easy decision, but there is a cost to us as the new orange zone of knowingly broadcasting untrue things.

It's just it's so clingy. Watch uh, Rachel meta sort of portraying herself is like our audience Angel .

right .

in matters concerning you know, information and that she's really gna do a great job of like curating exactly what would be best for us to see and and getting rid of what would be harmful. I wanted guys .

see IT from their perspective really quick. If you really think that this is a guy, let's see what they really think. So these people think that he let a cow and only says, complete total size, and they see themselves, I guess, there for, as in a war, to save america. It's hard for me to take this seriously, even as i'm saying, and I I want to start laughing, but because, I mean, this is what i've seen, this is steria for my entire adult life like, let's see or is that so that was eighteen s back in college, I would says when I first started noticing the hysteria a um kind of every election is spoken of in similar of language.

None quite so crazy as trump s um leading me to think that like their their sense of what a lie is is just political opinions they don't like right um because realistically like every politician is a liar in a way every single one of them is either lying by a mission or lying out right we catch them in lies constantly when they are on the stage um you might say I was a mistake or or the spoke or whatever. But I don't really think so I think because it's just politics um and all politicians are terrible but there is a question of I don't know how you would cover one if you really thought they were beyond pale, would you not want to platform the lives without coming away? Fact checking in every second I don't know what is the media's what should the media's responsibility be here? Um I know brand if .

I think if you're M S M B C, then you have I mean, they wear they are bias on their sleeve. Presumably we all know they're left leaning. I think they are probably explicit about that.

I don't watch IT, but um I feel like it's perfectly within their right to um not cover trump right to then I want to do that. That's fine. What would a fair and baLanced media organization do? I think they would cover trump when he had something news worthy to say.

But I think it's fine for Rachel to run show. However few month, I am sure her, our viewers, to fully support that decision. They are probably switch over the fox to watch him though, because you can is certain resistible as as a .

personality they like Better than writing people like him. He gives them meaning. He is so important to the far left.

He is the enemy that defines them by through its, through its opposite. You're they're fighting him. They represent everything the opposite of what they say that he is. They think without them, they sort of, they kind of crumble. And in that way, I mean, for for that recent and I wish you would go away.

but there is also a narrative that emerged in sort of like the ashes of the hilary clinton twenty six came campaign that said that trump one in part because a lot of new stations would basically just broadcast his rallies in entirety because they were so entertaining basically and that um they hadn't done that as much for hilary clinton is like they would show like clipsed and eyelids or whatever of her speeches but they want to just like set up a camera, essentially walk away, go pick IT up and start um and I mean to a certain extent like trump, dig, get more, earn media through that but that's because it's possible to watch a trop speech for thirty minutes without falling a sleep and the same is out true for Hillary clinton like this was like a disney decision um that a lot of the news companies made where there was like, yeah we put trump on then why people are gonna watch that and if you just broadcast a forty five minute and specially people are not, you said through that, even people who are voting vertical probably not said through that.

So I think now h that's part of um what M S N B C is doing is they're like we're not going to you know make that same mistake again of just little putting drummed on and letting him say whatever. And I think also the other part of that is like they're trying to signal to their audience of like lobo boomers that like this, this guy is so serious. And this is why? Because I think pigeon model says like this is in the decision we take wide, like you are trying to like raise the gravity of the situation of like he's so dangerous that you know we just can we just can't take the risk. I ve just telling you what you said. You you know it's more dramatic, but it's just strict.

The morality of IT and the question of whether or not is dangerous and what not what I don't think he is at all um but tactically talking about him a lot doesn't seem to have worked. Not talking about at all clearly is not working um so I don't even know what they're I don't understand how they could even I just don't know where their heads at. At this point like you kind of have to discover IT at that.

There's nothing that they seem to be able to do that can stop him. He's just popular at this point. He is a very, very uniquely popular candidate. I mean, never in history as they're IT never in our life has there been a candidate um on the right this popular that's never exist.

Ted, I guess maybe I was too Younger, reagan, but brand and I were alive for that technically um maybe he was really popular then still I know he was popular are coming in. I don't know how people there was told the but this is just he's popular and he's he's going to win the republican, mary. Um and they're going to have to cover something.

I don't know what that's going to look like, but fortunately I am not to worry about IT because I don't work at M. S. C.

And i'm not sitting next to rich l matto. Um I want to talk about something little bit different. Is this crazy s like like deeply insane ebay story? A Brandon, do you want to just guide us through this held admission .

for sure? Yeah, the defendants were definitely in a held dimension for a while at the at the hands of ebay, I was shocked to reading the story. So putting together the weekly newsletter, the industry, a few days ago, I came across an item in the new york times that described a bit basically it's a story on how the justice department last thursday um charge the entire company of ebay, which was the first for me.

I was like what he doesn't tire company get charged with stocking witness tampering and obstruction of justice for some events that happened in twenty eighteen that involved a small newsletter called e commerce bites. And just to like give you background on that, the commerce spites is is a newsletter slash website that was started four years after ebay was started. If you actually go to IT IT looks like they haven't updated IT since then.

It's a very kind of podunk. Um what I would describe as a trade publication for ebay sellers and amazon sellers, you know people who are making a living selling, I don't know, use stuff for antique or whatever on ebay. And if you just like go through the adler es, it's like you know ebay ship in glitch hits one day after the busiest sales day or you know ebay glitch champers sellers from making office this week.

So it's really kind of just is like a trade publication that covers ebay. And the suit specifically is about the actions of the ebay security team in twenty um around that time ah this this blog e commerce by its published an article that revealed that the then CEO devin wench was paid one hundred and fifty times more than a typical ebay employee and this like apparently set off like IT trigger a lot of people eternally at ebay. And what occurred afterwards is pretty insane.

So apparently the security team starts threatening uh, this husband, wife couple over twitter sending direct, since I need them, direct messages that were apparently very, very threatening and the situation escalates such that the security team flies from sano z were ebay. H Q is too boston to increase their the efficacy of their stocking like they have to be like in person. Sorry, the couple is in boston so they have to get closer to the couple.

Um according to the D O J, um the security team proceeds to attempt to us install a GPS device in the sina's car. Um they post class classified ads in the local papers for that that were the like. The address is the stinkers house. There is saying like there's an orgy at the house, come join they sign up for porn magazine subscriptions under a the husband's name and send them to their neighbors so like their neighbors are getting a like accidental porn magazines dressed to David, which is the husband um it's it's even crazy.

But my favorite one was when they sound like they sent to a husband a book about surviving the loss of a spouse yeah and then they set like a floor, like a funeral, read then yes day like they were like for really sending death. These people malicious behavior.

They send a package of live spiders and cockroaches to the house. Yeah, a bloody pig mask they sent to the house. I mean, this is in the that they like, do funny things, like ordered a bunch of pizza, send to them.

You know, this sounds like to me that sounds like, what are their names the couple responsible for this nazi blog.

David David and inas dinner what sounds .

like David and inner bucked around and found out?

I think so the chief communications officer at the time would agree with you. Um it's surprising because the D O J details how this goes all the way up to the sea sweet um they've got emails from the cco at the time who who says you we're being .

too nice SHE needs to r at the P R person.

the chief cons officer. This, the buck literally stops with him. You know, IT doesn't go any higher than that. He needs to be crushed he says, sometimes you just need to make an example out of someone a SHE. He says another email, we're gona crush this lady.

What what happened to these people? Just money. I was, all they do is have to pay money.

Like seven people from the security team went to jail .

a couple years ago.

Well, I think IT was only so. Seven people were charged, all pleaded guilty, six or sentence to prison or home confinement. The head of the security team was sentenced to fifty seven months, which is like five years like that in prison starting in september.

So you still serving and somebody still awaiting sentencing. So now, now the D. O, J has filed these charges, and i'll be they came to an agreement with ebay.

Um they'll be dropped if ebay maintains a good record, which should be pretty easy, just don't fucking do crazy should like this again. Um the charges will be dropped in three years if they don't stock anybody else and they have to pay three million bucks. Um but the couple still has a civil suit that's going to um trial starting in march.

How much what are they are going to make?

I don't know.

I don't know what there's so no, they were in um they were trying to be just settlement with ebay, but they kept falling through, which tells me that they're probably going to a lot of money like you know, ebay would probably offer them at least a few million til like they probably would have been like we admit no wrong doing or whatever. I think these people they probably want to want the money and they probably also want IT like on record that like ebay basically .

try to kill us. And for what it's worth, the the now o has completely disowned the actions of the previous C E O and executive teams. Um he said, you know the company's conduct was wrong and reprehensible um from the moment we learned of IT, we've been CoOperating extensively and we since we extend our deep apologies stainers so talk .

is cheap yeah I mean one of .

the most perverse aspects of the story like I think people should go and read the D R J brief for themselves. It's it's freely available online. It's like only twenty four pages and it's extreme disturbing and entertaining. Um but one of the weirdest details of this is at one point ebay actually sent one of their employees to like pretend to help the liners as part of this like White .

night strategy.

Yeah yeah it's this guy.

What's his name David? Now brian gilbert who was a former police captain um and was I guess working as like ebay is special senior manager, special Operations for ebay es global security team and he goes and he tells this couple is like elderly couple that runs this blog, it's going to help them and this is all part of this very sophisticated plot like about them over um it's so weird like the level of detail they put into. The harassment.

this is just going to be a netflix true crime series within five years. Maybe we should do IT. I know we write, write the screen play an amazing.

I could write a king killer screen play about this. I wonder how, like, maybe I don't know, I know her actors and stuff, so I always wonder if like an audio fiction thing at work, but then I just get bored listening to audio fiction things. So I feel like the answers just know, even though it's so .

much cheaper pitch pitch cereal with with the story for the next season that that podcast is still around.

Well, i'm going to take a little note to myself and well will circle back with some empire wire news in the future about what would we call IT.

what was IT I guess it's spiders and coco aches collen. I don't know what what comes after to up, but spires and coco just have to be.

We would have to be. We need to play, unlike what is ebay. We need ebay. Her is.

So I was just mean that ebay terminology that that occurs me have no idea at all with that. If IT is um it's like not a part of culture at all. And yet the people on IT are obsessed with IT. There are still there is still like an ebay community that is vibrate interesting. Well yeah like the like ebay bidding my grandma.

I got up us with that for a while and SHE had to like, delete her account because he was like, is getting ridiculous. Like he was like, you you get .

sucked in the late I remember when ebay was first hitting in the late nineties and he was like almost in the way that being a babies was really a craze. Um IT was like ebay. I think the concept of, but I think the idea that you could do this was exciting to people. You could find stuff in your house and put IT up for sale, kind of like forbidding.

And you could find stuff yourself on the internet and like, like that actually was the excitement about IT was you could do this thing that seemed crazy and deliberating really like like, wow, I you can online, fine stuff, and it's weird old stuff for great stuff and and IT felt like super in powering. Um but then maybe it's just, uh, the actual idea of that, I mean, the kind of person who really want to get into IT. This is a very unique sort of guy or girl I .

was prety amazon to, and I think it's outdated. Now you don't anna bit on something and IT, most people don't wana wait like five days after they bid for you to know some random you old jacket or whatever.

They think that thing looks good. They change a lot, mostly anymore. You can still set up. You can set like a set prize or you can do bidding. I think it's more like ebay is where you go when you're looking for something extremely specific or you're like a collector or something. Yeah like my mom really like to collect SHE likes, like antique, like tens and stuff with, like, from, like, I really like the land of lakes in indian or whatever .

on IT like stuff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I like, I like whenever I have to buy A A gift for Christmas or what I always going to ebay. I was fine stuff on there, but like it's kind of like I you know people who are who collect, like I don't know stamps, I guess like baseball cards or something, probably used what I imagine I was going to say.

I'm a former baseball card collector and I did use ebay a lot, but it's quite niche. 嗯 and yeah， the bidding is still an attractive feature of IT because you can get good, good cards for cheap.

So well, something look forward to for me turning, I guess, sixty five or something. I feel like that's what I want to hit my ebay, my ebay era. We should tell you about humor kind of round this episode out um two different stories that I think are interesting. One is the babble on b sorry, getting cancelled on twitter for we finally found I we've finally found a thing that you can talk about but IT I added it's been so long since i've seen in our right wing, I mean a cancellation in our cancelled but it's been so long I seen outrage over A A rightwing thing on twitter I I found IT interesting um and that will have a drag race and I know i'll be careful with that one is brand and said that pire wireless people don't care about the Grace but we'll find a way to make IT realised .

on the comments about that guys. So how how did they get cancelled though they really get cancelled.

I want to say that they were trending and not for the right reason for the first time as they were brought back by elon mosque that I that I saw there were two stories um one was a joke about. The like D I airplane situation so D I pun to have art time I home so IT was IT was a short IT was like the di pilot wrote the short plane or something .

um there was a picture of .

a short plan to of a small for like dum pilots and then the other one also so IT was vivek. Get a job at a seven eleven just kind of roughly like roughly dark the roughly there isn't someone .

like a united form that they put him on him um and .

so these things that goes inspired fury on twitter. What I found surprising and they was not like they were not being really supported IT was especially of the especially the short plane won. And that has to do with the word that i'm going to spell right now and not for the rest of this segment.

You're going to hear a beat every time I say because I believe this is still a we're living under the kind of the world youtube rules and pretty sure this is council a slater still but the word is R E 起 A R D um and I think that you're not supposed to say IT， which I have. I mean, we could have a whole segment on this. I think it's crazy that you can say i'm going it's out ratio that you can save this word.

I think this word is fine. Don't I don't I think calling someone this word, he was actually this word, and you, I think calling something to read, actually that's up. But I think calling like like, like a river says something that annoyed me and I call him a read.

I think that should be okay. I think this is a and I should be able to do that. But I was also raising like a sort of working class environment, new jersey. And i'm going to blame that uh, river, you have a lot of thoughts about the word yes.

I mean.

if you know .

what I mean, like it's just everybody said that the only the thing was is that you could never call an actually read. Like if you have somebody who's got you know later has some sort of other disability, you can you can say that word do is just old. It's not mean it's just old, okay. But like if you set like a few connaught, the person then yeah you're an assets, but otherwise like its fine. Like the word idiot is also like that was what people called.

like we used to be the nice word, yes, but this is where he breaks down for me. This is exactly where IT breaks down for me because you're not supposed use the word idiot either or more on at the height of people not able to say with online on twitter.

This was a couple years ago, I think was when we reach disease IT was like clubs was uh Taylor the rends rights a piece or right to tweet about a mark and dressing using the r ward in the clubhouse chat? He didn't co founder used the word to reference a someone else doing something that he considered bad right? Like I like a roughly the story he completely lie and how to apologize about IT um but at that in that era we were talking about not being able less and so I was like, you couldn't call people stupid either uh or or morons either and for me it's like, okay but there are people who are stupid and and I wanted be able to call them this thing that they are I don't understand how you can take that word off the table. And if you take that word or if you take this, like you're taking really not just a word, but like you're taking you're taking a critique off the table. I'm I am critical, your intelligence and I think that you are like we're jacket could takes her to that and I have to be, how do you actually express that opinion because if I can't express that opinion, I like, why don't know I don't really bad up and but I want to be able to express .

that of indian yeah I mean, I think that isn't it's still used in like a medical terminology teacher ally.

I think they don't even used in more. Another reason that I don't care, I think they don't. They used to say something a was returned about they they were the processes that, that could be obviously, and that can still happen. But to be a to be to be, I don't think I think they just got more specific. There are all different .

forms of mental disabilities as the same thing as calling something .

feminine .

or something gay, but not meaning actually gay. I think that's the, I think that's the argument that the parents in the comments section of abla be probably had. You should not like, you should .

not equal ay, but it's like not like .

this sorry. No, you know how you call something like fake and gay, right? It's him in some way, right? It's not. I think people who would be offended by that would say should not a quick gay with this negative quality that you're describing.

And I think.

Some of this problem, as I can cut out, that we've been, we going ham, but IT brings me to this place of like IT was the question of humor and what is acceptable? What's not acceptable? We bounced around a lot in reality television.

We are witnessing the return of billin's both there a couple things that you have shows sort of celebrating tifany um on the the villa show I forget with the name the villa show was but she's gone super viral st with her epic owns but this whole show a reality showing in which all of these different villains from different areas like beloved villains mean amErica loves horrible rated person um they come on to the show and they compete I guess for like top villa um but that was that maybe the first signal and then uh this year so this season reports drag races back. You guys I know probably according to brand and don't care much about that. I do I think group all super based actually like quietly, very based and very interesting.

And that's another podcast for another day. I just want to talk about this one of new contest um for me the interesting thing about this is for years people were afraid to be cancelled. That's really what was happening is like the real's drag race pane is vigilant and rabbit and frightening and extremely left wing um which is again funny because of who repel actually is and we can break all that down from the fracking to the sort of questionable trains comments uh that he was totally rosted onto the fact that he goes by he rather than SHE and makes a big think about that he's a man and he was like at the dress is a job stop calling me a woman.

The fact that there is an embrace of someone who is just mean and uh I mean fake, that really this in this scene what happens um is there like a talent show and this drag, when not good, gets up with a giant sign that says it's like their talent is activism and SHE stands up with a sign that says, like protect queer art or something and this is the kind of thing that has happened in season's past and people are like, oh my god. IT was be used to fall and then we're all at home like waiting for the next one because it's like just do flips again please or say something funny like what is going on here um playing janis just like, yeah you know we want to protect, we are but like what are what what are we protecting here? Like you have to actually produce the art and and I think that that alone and that's like a super anti woke e statement to be said a on this show that was basically embraced and everybody was like, yeah was bad art um I think that's interesting.

Know you take away the message and what is your talent holding up posters to protect clear art, but is he giving us anything worth protecting? That's the question. I think that you're going to see if you're seeing IT there.

And and I think really interesting about IT is where it's happening. If you're seeing IT there, uh this sort of reality check and um kind of a flash back to just let's be funny again. Let's have funy again.

I think you might see IT elsewhere now you are this election years. So I think it's going to get worse and worse and cultural probably question and become more toxic. I always has I don't know how IT won't again um but .

now today i'm riding the vibe shift. Nobody wanted to be a villain again. So you didn't really they had to kind of create villains out of like thin air um where people were just kind of a little bitchy.

They would just amp IT up for now a return and just a plain jing perfect villain one of the only drag queen really i've seen in a long time on the show who's attractive as a man. Like that's a scary combination when they're like you rarely see IT and sona those on time. There's like hot for drag wine, but then like actually hot this one.

And I think maybe that's where the confidence comes from. It's like listen, if drag is a word out for me, I still look like this how to make up on. So I have an option. And I think I think there's some the psychology during fifi's heroes because now fifi's hair is just like a twitch twin or something. What I mean, like thirty five, but you know, like just a hot guy on witch.

I think a lot of the the appetite for a villa on reality T V comes from a rejection of mediocre racy, really. Because the thing about the queer r you have to produce, you actually have to produce our in order to protect that is, I think, so satisfying to people. Because for so long we've been made to say that things that are just mediocre aren't to protect people's feelings. And I think song of this is going back to what you are saying about how believing that you can change your life and succeed is at odds with the kind of work, belief and systems of oppression.

It's like a if you believe that you have the power to excel in what you're doing, then if you're mediocre IT means that you're fAiling, right? And so I think that, like the villain who's willing to call you out on, that taps into this kind of desire for people to see shady stuff get called out on, and that we haven't able say this for, you know, for years. And we've all just had to like, sit down D I is the perfect capsule tion of that where you literally have to uh you know even the playing field um which means elevating mediocre people to positions that their a superiors should occupy silliness.

A willingness statement from panel of billions uh working at this willingness media company very excited for people to call us uh nazis in the comments. Please do so. Ah maybe I don't know that affects distribution don't cause nose the comments share this with your friends like IT review IT tell everybody about IT get my comments to say things that you love about IT tell us how much um you care .

about report to rabbit brain space and we will see you should .

thon and .

I do a drag race recap epsom every week I murdered in the comments my decision to take I know .

this one could go other way. It's been real. I'll see here next we got bunch to get interviews coming so set tight and yep, subscriber die later.