The Growing Threat of Tech Censorship: Stefan Molyneux Speaks at the European Union Parliament

Stefan Molyneux

Stefan Molyneux speaks at the EU Parliament 31 Jan 2019.  - Tommy Robinson banned by Twitter and PayPal - Laura Loomer banned by Twitter - Republican consultant R.C. Maxwell banned by Twitter - Carl Benjamin (“Sargon of Akkad”) banned by Patreon - Robert Spencer banned by Patreon following pressure by credit card companies. - Candace Owens suspended by Twitter - James Woods suspended for 30 days by Twitter - I, Hypocrite, focused on far-left hate speech banned by Facebook - Avi Yemini, a Jewish-Australian IDF veteran and conservative activist was banned by Facebook - Mohammed Tawhidi, an anti-extremist imam: banned by Facebook - The Babylon Bee, a conservative humor site: threatened with suspension by Facebook - Terrence K. Williams: suspended by Facebook - Gavin McInnes: banned by Twitter and Facebook - Alex Jones/Infowars: banned by Facebook, Twitter, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, Pinterest, and YouTube - Over 800 alternative news accounts were banned by Facebook shortly before the US midterms  - Tech companies have invested hundreds of millions in “news” media. - Facebook and Apple, YouTube have all announced that they will directly fund handpicked “authoritative news sources.” - These sources will then be promoted to their users without ads. - Google, YouTube’s parent company, has committed a budget of $300 million to pay for “quality journalism.” - YouTube has committed $25 million to paying for “news.” - YouTube has also reported that it will “prominently surface authoritative sources” for users. (again, promotion with no ads) - Jan 2018, Facebook code changes pushed “establishment” news sources to the top of engagement – CNN at the top. - Mark Zuckerberg’s stated goal was to promote “high-quality news” that “helps build a sense of common ground.” - The “trusted sources” ranking – any conservative outlets? - Zuckerberg’s example of “good trustworthy journalism”: The New York Times. - Facebook announced it would partner with 80 unnamed publications to create “exclusive news content” ahead of the 2018 US midterm elections. - Facebook said it planned to directly fund news programming, such as shows from CNN’s Anderson Cooper and Mic.com. - These outlets often parrot the “Russia Collusion” conspiracy.  GET MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING', THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI, AND AUDIOBOOK!  https://peacefulparenting.com/  Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!  Also get the Truth About the French Revolution, multiple interactive multi-lingual philosophy AIs trained on thousands of hours of my material, as well as targeted AIs for Real-Time Relationships, BitCoin, Peaceful Parenting, and Call-Ins. Don't miss the private livestreams, premium call in shows, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!  See you soon!  https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2022

Transcript

00:00Hi everybody, this is Stefan Molyneux. I hope you're doing well.

00:03So this week I

00:04Flew to Brussels in order to give a speech at the European Union Parliament

00:11Now first of all, I want to thank you for this opportunity. I believe that I did is proud

00:17I know that the subject of high-tech censorship is very very important and very very close to my heart and mind as it is

00:22I think

00:24to the entire community of civilized and rational thinkers

00:27But I really really want to thank you for this remarkable opportunity to stand in a Parliament building and speak truth

00:35directly to power

00:37So thank you for your support

00:39Your liking your subscribing your sharing your conflict your dislike your hatred your opposition your debate

00:45Your love and your enmity all of which have coalesced to give me these remarkable opportunities

00:52Which philosophers have very rarely had throughout human history

00:55To speak truth directly to power

00:58So I really really want to thank you. I also do want to ask you this is exhausting work. It's tiring work. It's difficult work

01:05Lots of red-eye flights lots of staggering around trying to get my thoughts together on little sleep

01:11So I really really would appreciate it so much. I promise I will continue to do great work with the resources you provide me

01:18I really really do ask you enormously and deeply and humbly and gratefully

01:23To support what it is that I do I

01:27Believe I'm doing a great job in the service of humanity a philosophy and of you

01:32My dear listener and watcher of this show

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01:40The link is right here attached to the video and the audio free domain radio.com forward slash donate

01:46I need your help. I will continue to do you proud

01:50Thank you, thank you, thank you everyone so much

01:54For all that you have given me and for all that you enable me to give to the world

02:00free domain radio.com forward slash donate and

02:03Now the video of my speech about high-tech censorship at the European Union Parliament

02:10There were a few technical issues nothing too insurmountable, but the quality of the audio doesn't prove in the second half once again

02:17Thank you so much for this opportunity, I look forward to the next one

02:23Thank you, thank you very much. It's a great pleasure to be here. It's always nice when a philosopher can address a

02:29Legislative body without actually being accused of say corrupting the young or not believing in the gods of the city

02:35So I really really appreciate that at least yet

02:38So I'm going to talk about five major issues that are occurring when it comes to free speech

02:44But first I want to remind everyone that free speech is the essence of civilization

02:50the truth is a very slippery and elusive beast and it takes a team effort of

02:56Conversation and debate and challenge and empirical evidence to begin to encapsulate the truth

03:03Nobody has a monopoly on truth

03:05The truth is a social conversation and it's uncomfortable because we all have things that we believe and when they're challenged

03:12It is difficult emotionally and being able to handle that emotional difficulty is the essence of civilization

03:18There's an old saying that says the first person to throw an insult rather than a rock

03:22Founded civilization and I really want to make sure that we keep the great challenging conversations in the world

03:30civil open

03:31challenging exciting and the tech giants

03:35Have facilitated as has this technology the most amazing conversation in human history

03:41It's really really important to understand that when I look back throughout history and my graduate degree was in the history of philosophy

03:48the Overton window what you could talk about throughout most of history was very very narrow and very circumscribed and censorship and

03:56Deplatforming as in not allowing you into the priesthood and not allowing you into the university was very much the rule of the day

04:03So we have this incredible capacity

04:07to have a worldwide conversation

04:10About truth reality virtue courage

04:15civilization and

04:16That is something which we should enormously treasure. It's it's almost like all of human history

04:22Has pointed us to this very particular moment where a global conversation is possible for the first time to unite us in the

04:29umbrellas of reason evidence truth philosophy virtue

04:33but

04:34All opportunities are potential disasters throughout history and the tech giants who are facilitating using the technology available

04:42facilitating this conversation

04:44are at great risk of

04:46silencing it

04:48of cutting it off and

04:50That is a great challenge, which I would like to talk about now. Now. Do you guys run the?

04:55The PowerPoint. All right, if we can get ourselves started, that would be excellent. I do have a technical background

05:00I was a software entrepreneur for about 15 years a chief technical officer head programmer

05:04So I know how a good deal of this chunk of stuff works

05:08so the first thing that I want to talk about with regards to the tech giants is

05:13conflict of interest now, of course as

05:16parliamentarians you're very aware of the challenge of conflict of interest and conflict of interest in the high-tech world is

05:23very very important when they write

05:27about

05:28People like in this front row or yourself if you challenge some orthodoxy that a lot of tech companies believe in when they write about

05:35You they're not writing

05:36Objectively a lot of times they're writing about a direct competitor. So what do we do?

05:42We talk about current events. We talk about news. We analyze what's going on in the world today

05:47It's a kind of citizen journalism. I suppose you could say now the tech giant companies are not

05:55Neutral platforms. That's where they started

05:58but that's not where they are where they are now is direct investors and

06:04partners with news outlets

06:07tech giants have invested hundreds of

06:10millions of dollars in

06:13Developing news sources. They have partnered with particular news sources

06:17So when you have an investment of hundreds of millions of dollars

06:21Do you promote your competition that is outstripping that investment sometimes? Well, of course not

06:27For the tech giants to write about us is like coke writing about Pepsi if they thought that Pepsi was Nazis

06:34So that's an important thing to remember and I think that should have us question how the tech giants are

06:42Working with the people who are directly threatening their investment of hundreds of millions of dollars. They cannot

06:48Be objective in this sphere

06:51Now

06:54They've also

06:56Promoted quite often

06:59Partners in news. All right, we're getting some slide there. Here we go. Here we go

07:07All right, I'll do that slide in a moment

07:10It's just kind of professionalism that they just can't compete with you see

07:14Sit warm in here if that is all right

07:16so

07:18when the tech giant have invested all this money and

07:22They face people like us

07:26Who are taking away market share from their investment? They cannot be objective about us

07:31when they promote

07:32Their partners in news to the top of the feed which occurs in in Facebook. It occurs in YouTube

07:39they are

07:42Enhancing their own investments. They're enhancing their own partnerships and they're doing it without

07:48Clearly marking it as sponsored content. It's very very important because it used to be back in the day

07:54if a video floated up to the top

07:55It's because it was very popular if it floats up because of a manipulation of the algorithm as the result of a partnership

08:01It looks popular

08:03But it's not and it doesn't have the word sponsor underneath now to me. This is somewhat fraudulent. I don't mean legally

08:10I just mean kind of morally that if you're artificially promoting your partners or artificially promoting your own news

08:17organization without telling the end-user I

08:20I

08:22Don't think that's a fair use of the monopoly power that some of these companies seem to have so I think that's

08:29very important and

08:31it comes

08:33to this question

08:35Which is right up there on the slide. This is a very philosophical question and this legislative body wrestles with this every single day

08:45There's a Christian perspective which actually ties in very closely to the evolutionary perspective

08:50The evolutionary perspective says how did we advance? How did we develop this giant craniums and this amazing technology?

08:57well because

09:00We evolve by gathering resources by hook or by crook and applying it to those with the closest genetic proximity

09:07right our families our tribe our communities and

09:11So we're kind of selfish

09:13We're not objective

09:15We're not fair. We're not just we're not moral

09:18We're scathing animals looking to gather resources and feed our young

09:23now we have a

09:24layer

09:26We have a layer of civility on top of that seething evolutionary hunger

09:31But that's why those who study human evolution recognize that human beings are elementally corruptible

09:37Because it serves our evolution

09:40That we are corruptible that we have an in-group preference that we prefer genetic proximity to genetic distance that

09:46All of those who said no, no my children don't need to eat your children should eat first when hunger came along

09:52Well evolution made pretty short shrift of that kind of generosity

09:57So we have developed

09:59into

10:01Altruistic people who can put aside personal or biological interest

10:05But at the same time there's that lizard brain of survival at all costs

10:09Which is one of the reasons we can't handle power now Christians also say that we're in a fallen state

10:15Christians say

10:17Satan is very very tempting. You know, Satan is like fishnet stockings swinging at purse and

10:24Yeah, very alluring. He's got pheromones. He uses apps. I don't exactly know how it works

10:29I'm not a theologian, but it's something like that. And so

10:33Satan is gonna tempt you with power and he's gonna say I will give you the material goods of this world in return

10:42For your soul in return for your integrity for your morality

10:46Well, we like the material things of this world because we need them to survive that serves the Darwinian side that we have

10:55So if you look at people who study evolution you look at Christians they say the concentration of power is very dangerous

11:03because people will use it for their own biological material ends and

11:07People will use it to control others, which is why

11:12Christians and and other religious people say let's have a small state because human beings can't handle power. It's too much for us

11:18It's not good for us. And the evolutionists believe this the Christians believe this but the socialists

11:25the hard leftists

11:29Yes you

11:30They take a different approach which they say human beings can be perfectible

11:35If we change the environment

11:38If we have the right language if you have the right approach if we punish the right people and reward the right people

11:45We can achieve a paradise we can achieve a utopia which means everybody who doubts that

11:50Stands between the leftist and the paradise that they wish to create in this earth

11:55Now if you have paradise just beyond that one person

12:00It's pretty easy

12:02to get rid of that person

12:04now leftists and

12:07Fascists as well, but leftists since we're talking about them at the moment have particular ways of getting rid of people right now

12:14Relatively civilized in the past not so much

12:17Right if there's utopia and there's one human being standing between you and utopia

12:21It's very easy to say well, of course, they have to be deplatformed

12:24of course, they have to get out of the way because paradise is just on the other side of that person's disagreement and

12:31And if that's what you genuinely believe it's very easy to unpeople

12:35human beings and to assume that you have the answer that everyone else is missing and if these damn people would just get out of

12:40the way you could make paradise on earth and

12:43This idea that you can just use power for good. It corrupts other people, but I can handle it. I

12:49Will do nothing but greatness with this power

12:54It's very very tempting and we can see this playing out in social media giants

13:00Google Facebook YouTube they have a challenge and I'm not going to say it's easy

13:04They have a challenge to satisfy a well community of wildly divergent perspectives to satisfy legislative requirements to

13:12Satisfy pressure groups who can sometimes be very dangerous. So I I sympathize but we do have to delineate the issue. We can move on to

13:20the next slide please

13:24So this is a bit of a role if you need to scroll down to the end here

13:28This is just in 2018

13:32This is a list of the people who either temporarily or permanently were unpersonate

13:40Vanished some have reemerged others are gone in perpetuity

13:48Of this list

13:49There were over 800 alternative news accounts banned

13:53just before the u.s. Midterms by Facebook and

13:57These are the ones that we know of these are the people who have some

14:01public power who can raise the red flag who

14:06Who we see there are lots of you know in the first world war they couldn't identify half the bodies

14:10They just unknown soldiers. There are lots of people who vanished who didn't have

14:15The visibility to fight back who didn't have the social support to fight back. And these are all people who challenge leftist narratives and

14:24Look we all know the pendulum is way

14:27Way on the left at the moment. It needs to have a balance and I

14:33Believe and and having talked with these people last night

14:35I know for sure that our goal is to prevent the swing from going too far. We wish to arrest it in the middle

14:42We are moderates. We wish to keep it a conversation. We wish to keep it civil. Let reason and evidence win the day

14:48Not passion and hatred

14:49We have swung very far to the left. There are 40,000 outright Marxists in American universities and

14:56Yet everybody's worried about Nazis. I mean, it's mad and

15:01We are trying to arrest there's gonna be blowback. It always happens in history. You swing from one side to the other

15:06We're trying to arrest that swing in the middle to keep the conversation civil if we are

15:11Deplatformed the pendulum is gonna swing way far to the other side and we've seen that before in history

15:16We really don't want to see that again, so let's not de-platform people. All right, we move to the next slide, please

15:26So we talked a little bit about the conflict of interest and just take this down to the bottom, please

15:32So basically they are developing

15:35Their own news sources. They are partnering with existing news sources. They are changing their algorithms to favor

15:41establishment news sources

15:44Now for most people you say well, there's some guy in the basement

15:48Well, that's not credible. But then there's CNN

15:51Right. There's all of the establishment news sources

15:53There's the New York Times the Washington Post you can go on down through the list should be no contest, right?

15:58The guy in the basement. What does he know?

15:59I got a whole team of reporters and fact-checkers and lawyers and all this kind of stuff

16:05But you know to be frank

16:08the mainstream media

16:09Has not been doing a very

16:12Good job of predicting things. There's more wish fulfillment. I mean everybody knows

16:17What their estimates were for who was gonna win the election a couple years ago?

16:22Was it 97% was gonna be Hillary Clinton and they were completely wrong

16:26Because they wanted that it wasn't true. It was wish fulfillment. It's not reporting

16:31fantasizing

16:33Mark Zuckerberg stated that his goal is to promote high-quality news that quote helps build a sense of common ground

16:42You cannot have both

16:46Because truth is elusive and it requires

16:50Conflict to find it

16:53The truth is usually like alien style somewhere between two extremes

16:57So if you want to build common ground, it means you're silencing people who disagree with a particular perspective. I don't want that to happen

17:04I don't want leftists to be tapped deplatformed. I don't want communists to be deplatformed

17:09I don't want anyone to be plat to be platformed because the truth

17:13Is going to be somewhere in the challenging thrust and parry of intellectual debate

17:19If you want a sense of common ground, whatever that means you are outright declaring your goal to censor who you disagree with

17:28And he gave an example of good trustworthy journalism

17:33the New York Times the old great lady now for a lot of people again, that's

17:36Legit that's solid stuff. They got some Pulitzers for covering up the crimes of Stalin

17:43But the New York Times

17:46You know what the guy in the basement with the webcam has never done

17:51He's never started a war and the New York Times report

17:59Leading up to the Iraq war was instrumental in getting the u.s.

18:02to

18:04Get involved in one of its most costly and destructive wars

18:09That's trustworthy journalism

18:13New York Times big fans of Hugo Chavez

18:15When now middle-class women are having to sell themselves into prostitution for food. They have to sell their children

18:23Any attraction refractions any apologies? No, just move on

18:28Like some cold-hearted person hits a bump in the road and just keeps driving doesn't circle around doesn't reflect

18:36The New York Times endorsed Hillary Clinton Hillary Clinton was instrumental in the overthrow of

18:42Gaddafi in Libya

18:44destroying a

18:46Totalitarian but functional society and replacing it with the warlord driven chaos with open-air slave markets and a massive migrant crisis is threatening the entire

18:55future of Western civilization

18:58But that's good

19:01Trustworthy

19:02journalism

19:04And that these people who were involved in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in the destruction of entire countries

19:11Perhaps even of civilizations that they dare

19:15dare

19:16to speak of fake news

19:21What is the body count of the alternative media

19:24What is the body count of the mainstream media

19:30It's repulsive next slide

19:35Bias bias

19:39Yeah, so Facebook announced it was going to partner with publications to create exclusive news content ahead of the front 18 US midterm elections

19:46It's gonna directly fund news programming from CNN's Anderson Cooper and Mike calm. I think fairly simple

19:52I'm I think fairly safe to say pretty lefty

19:56Because you see they're very concerned about fake news

19:59Fake news conspiracy theories. Yes, there are some very ridiculous conspiracy theories. One of my most popular videos

20:07Incomprehensibly enough to me is an hour-long debate with a guy who believed in the flat earth

20:14Yeah, they're out there but they're still not getting half a million people killed in Iraq by believing in the flat earth

20:21You know, they may get lost if they try and sail across the Atlantic but

20:26They're still not bringing down Western civilization

20:30But you want to talk about a conspiracy theory? Let's talk about the Russia collusion conspiracy theory

20:36How much harm has that done to people's belief in American jurisprudence?

20:44Google CEO

20:45Sundar Pichai told Congress's company

20:48Could only find $4,700 in ad spending from Russia linked accounts in 2016

20:54That's it. Anybody remember how much Hillary Clinton spent on her campaign?

20:59Anyone what was it? 1.5 billion dollars

21:02It was a mental

21:04According to the National Review private interests that closed deals with Vladimir Putin and his agents

21:08Thanks to then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's public favors gave the Clinton Foundation between

21:13152 million dollars and 173 of million dollars

21:19Almost 37,000 times the amount of money

21:24That Google admitted Russian linked accounts spent on ads

21:3237,000 times the money

21:35and they dare to talk about the alternative media and

21:40their crazy conspiracy theories

21:42So they're partnering with news organization

21:46What's their buyer? It's very clear

21:49Now put the sources to all of this when it gets published tech workers overwhelmingly support Democrats in 2018

21:54It was a study of the 15 million dollars from tech

21:58Employees that went to candidates 1% went to Republicans

22:031% Trump won the election. I know it wasn't quite 50% but let's just round up 50% of the vote

22:0950% of the vote 1% of the donations. Can you imagine if they lived in an area?

22:1850% blacks, but they only hired 1% of blacks. Everybody would go insane and rightly so

22:251% of the money 50% of the people

22:27And what's interesting as well is that there's strong indications from science these days from genetic studies that your political persuasion has genetic basis

22:35significant genetic basis

22:37so they're

22:39discriminating against people

22:41genetically by excluding Republicans

22:44It may not be your fault

22:47You're on the right or on the left or somewhere else

22:51They are genetically discriminating against people for things that often aren't even their fault

22:571% went

22:58to Republicans 23 3% of the money went to Democrats

23:0323 times

23:04country's 50-50 right

23:0723 times

23:09Are you telling me there's no bias? Come on, how many of the partners?

23:15In I was gonna say partners in crime how many of the partners in news

23:20Are not on the left

23:22Anybody Bueller anybody?

23:25None that I could see

23:27Let's do the next slide, please

23:30You

23:322018 after intense pressure from CNN. This was before the intense pressure from CNN to ban Alex Jones the Daily Beast and other left-wing journalists

23:41Facebook refused ad purchases from President Trump's reelection campaign, right? They were aimed at fostering support in the midterms

23:48They said that the immigration ad it was an immigration ad cannot receive paid distribution because it violates rules against sensational content. Oh

23:55Oh

23:57No, it gets people's attention. It's interesting

24:01Did that ever happen to the Democrats of course not

24:06Now Facebook, of course

24:08Trying to police the world's

24:10Fail you can't you can't you can't police the world and it's speech any more than you can

24:17Centrally plan an economy. You can't do it

24:202.27 billion monthly active users

24:23Every 60 seconds 510,000 comment 290,000 status is updated hundred and thirty six thousand photos updated

24:31They can't keep up with it they can't manage it they've lost a third of their market cap

24:38And their moderators

24:40It's horrible, but there are people stuck in

24:46Warehouses that make Amazon facilities look like the Hilton for you do the next page, please

24:53So this is from zero hedge to read this quickly for long for as long as 10 hours a day viewing as many as

24:5925,000 images or videos per day low-paid workers are buried in the world's horrors hate speech child pornography rape murder torture

25:07Beheadings and on and on

25:08They are not experts in the subject matter or region. They police they rely on guidelines provided by Facebook and I quote dozens of

25:16Unorganized PowerPoint presentations and Excel spreadsheets with bureaucratic filters like Western Balkans hate organ figures and

25:23credible violence implementation standards

25:26As the New York Times reported last fall the rules are not even written in the language the moderators speak

25:31So many rely on Google Translate which can produce some rather exciting results

25:37As recent a recent op-ed by John Norton in The Guardian declared bluntly in its headline Facebook's burnout

25:44Moderators are proof that it is broken

25:47So they can't police they have crazy guidelines. They have people who are burning out that this not possible

25:54It's not possible. Even if you have the best of intentions and given the bias they have for the left

25:59They don't have the best of intentions put these two things together and you see this is the company

26:04That is the world's policeman for what is acceptable speech

26:09They have been gathering call history and SMS data from Android devices

26:14They knew for quite a long time when they were selling ads that their

26:18Account for their videos was incorrect, but kept on selling them anyway

26:23Moral company

26:25moral arbiters

26:27They dare as anyone to have the vanity to think that their particular judgment and these burned-out workers stuck in

26:35shuddery horrifying

26:37shuddery horrifying

26:39tombs of horrors

26:41that they can substitute their judgment and

26:45Their underpaid employees for the robust marketplace of human interaction the world over. It's madness

26:52Do I get the next one, please?

26:54So this is a continuation from the zero hedge article the platforms content ecosystem is too poisoned

27:00For human or machine moderators to cleanse users are fleeing in droves

27:04especially in the company's most valuable markets ad buyers are

27:08Already shifting dollars to competition competitors platforms governments are stepping up to dramatically hinder Facebook's data collection capabilities

27:15With Germany just this week. This is a while ago banning third-party data sharing the company is under investigation

27:21By the FTC the Justice Department the SEC the FBI and several government agencies in Europe

27:27It has been accused by the UN of playing a determining role in Myanmar's genocide

27:35You know that

27:37Neckbearded blogger in the basement, but everybody derides and calls fake news. You know what they haven't been I can guarantee you they've not been

27:45accused by the UN of playing a

27:47determining role in Myanmar's genocide

27:52But this is the credible news this is the true news not the fake news the Facebook so respects and

27:59That they push to the top of the list to make sure that you don't hear

28:03Any perspective from anybody who has not been accused by the UN of playing a determiner role in Myanmar's genocide

28:13An executive exodus is underway at the company

28:16I'm not a big fan of criticizing other people's writing because I like the idea

28:20But I like how they go from well genocide to yeah, well some executives are unhappy, you know

28:25This is somehow some sort of moral equivalent

28:28Sooner or later Facebook's board will see no option but to remove Sheryl Sandberg and Mark Zuckerberg that may or may not happen

28:35Of course globals social market share dropped from 75.5 percent in December 2017 to 66.3 percent December 2018

28:41Biggest drop was in the US from 76 to 52 percent. Why?

28:46Because they're not perceived as an honest company

28:49Because they're openly stating that they're

28:53Changing things to benefit the left

28:56You've seen the videos of the people trying because Trump got in

29:01Who were executives in these tech companies?

29:04We'll skip that last part I'm sure we can distribute this but this is just about their

29:09Dishonesty about metrics they sell based on viewership and they knew that the numbers were inaccurate continued to sell

29:15But don't worry they can police

29:17The free speech of the world these paragons of virtue get the next slide, please

29:23Challenge for Saudi money often not talked about how much Saudi money is floating around the high-tech industry

29:32Saudi money is already behind many of the biggest tech startups in the US including Lyft Uber and Magic Leap Saudi Arabia's massive

29:3945 billion dollar check to SoftBank's vision fund the largest venture fund of all time means Saudi money will likely be part of the biggest

29:46pool of venture money for years to come the vision fund has made at least 26 investments including into

29:51Slack WeWork GM Cruise and other brand names over the last five years

29:57There's estimates of Saudi investors have directly participated in investment rounds totaling at least six point two

30:04billion billion dollars

30:09Saudi Arabia's money is in multiple funds with global ambitions one of the biggest is a Saudi

30:13Public investment fund which said it plans to grow from around a hundred billion today to two trillion dollars by 2030

30:19Now why does this matter?

30:22Muslims in the West

30:24overwhelmingly vote to the left

30:2790% 92% 95% or higher

30:34Saudi money is it going to have any influence

30:39On the perception of criticisms of Islam or other things that may be occurring in social media come on

30:46We used to have these sayings, you know when I was a kid they were always so interesting and illuminating I

30:53Think they've kind of fallen by the wayside. I don't think people read Aesop's fables as much anymore

30:57But he who pays the piper calls the tune

31:03It's not just Saudi Arabia over 20 Silicon Valley ventures companies have ties to Chinese government funding not Chinese investor funding Chinese government funding

31:11raising concerns about a tech transfer

31:14Transfer you know, like how a shoplifter transfers some goods from a store

31:19Hey, Russia collusion

31:22Kremlin money is behind prominent Russia venture capitalists in Silicon Valley who has investments in Twitter and Facebook. It's not proof of anything

31:29But it doesn't take two years of Robert Mueller to figure this stuff out fairly easy to find online

31:35You get the next one

31:38Are they ungovernable

31:40There's a lot of talk in conservative circles, well, they're private companies that can do what they want

31:45Should we regulate them should there be an Internet Bill of Rights?

31:49To me this doesn't matter the government's have almost no capacity and I'll put this prediction out there almost no capacity to regulate these companies

31:56Why?

31:58Well, they've been a lot of data breaches CNN September 20th 2018 quote

32:02Google is defending its policy to allow third-party apps to access and share data from Gmail accounts

32:07And

32:10If you don't don't raise your hands

32:11But I'm sure that some of you at some point over the last 10 years have had a gmail account

32:20Well, you get to share it with third-party apps

32:252017

32:26Google says they stopped scanning gmail account emails for advertising purposes

32:31Just going through your emails now. I've been looking for keywords

32:33I get all of that, but you can build a pretty good profile of people

32:39Susan Molinari

32:41No relation. I was close to my spelling

32:44VP of public policy and government affairs for the American for the Americas at Google wrote in a letter to senators that no human employees

32:50read users gmail

32:53Except in quote very specific cases where they ask us to and give consent or for security purposes

32:59like abuse investigations

33:02Somebody says that you said something mean and the kimono was open they go through email

33:09It's not the government, but it affects the government

33:14Quote the company noted in the letter that it has a process to in place for identifying apps that misrepresent themselves or aren't

33:22Transparent about how personal data is used Google says it is able to suspend

33:26These apps in the quote majority of cases before they're allowed to access data, however, it's unclear how many malicious apps have been removed

33:34so

33:35The digital kimono is open to the world

33:39Who has your emails? I doubt anybody knows. I doubt anybody knows

33:45Who's got your search history?

33:48Who's got your contact information? Who's got your call history?

33:52Well if you used Android maybe Facebook

33:55All the data you may have put on your shared drives

33:58Who's got your GPS your map history?

34:01Where you were what you said what you stored?

34:07So if you're in government and

34:10Somebody comes along and says, you know, I think we really start regulating these tech tech guys. They got a lot of power

34:16Do you have any questions about how that might play out I

34:20I

34:22Think you do I think you should we do the next one

34:28So

34:32The problem fundamentally is government power

34:39What is Google trying to do what a tech company is trying to do well, obviously they want the left in power

34:45They like the left and there's a wide variety of reasons for that which we can talk about

34:48The next time I'm here but

34:53There are trillions of dollars at stake in every election

34:57Some people are going to benefit enormously. Some people are gonna pay enormously when you've got trillions in dollars in play

35:04Of course people are going to get corrupted

35:07People can get corrupted by 50 bucks. You should see some of the bribes put to these Russian judges in

35:13Skating competitions. I mean it's like here's there's a foot rub and a $50 gift certificate to Best Buy and it's like yeah

35:19Your daughter wins, you know trillions of dollars for a play in these elections. Of course, people are going to be tempted by that

35:28Tech companies can swing elections. You can look it up tech companies can swing elections. Google can swing an election

35:34So if you're a politician and you want to take on Google

35:38Are they releasing some horrible gas in this am I next

35:44Sorry, is the subject matter too dry

35:47So Google can swing an election search engines can swing elections

35:54What politician is going to want to take that on

35:57They've got just about everything you ever did and they can swing an election if they want. I'm not accusing them of anything

36:01I don't have any proof of anything, but it's technically possible

36:08I think in a rational universe if you promote a new source that you've invested in

36:15Without telling the user

36:17That it's not organic. That is fraudulent morally. It's fraudulent. You know, if you're a writer in in the

36:26Stock market space and you praise some company that you have significant holdings in and you don't even tell the reader about your conflict of interest

36:33That is serious ethical violation of your profession

36:38when you say

36:40That there's an ad people say, okay, it's an ad it's not objective

36:43It's something paid for if you are promoting your partners or the people you've invested in without telling the user

36:48Come on

36:53Just wanted to throw this in there to get this in the record because the Canadian government

36:57Recently announced a six hundred million dollar media bailout

37:01Because you know the media won't make it that much money. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you

37:07Thank you. Thank you for watching me. It's not making as much money as they want. Well who is right?

37:11But six hundred million dollars, which is wonderful

37:15It's absolutely wonderful because it means nobody has to believe anything the Canadian media says anymore. They're bought and paid for

37:20bought and paid for

37:23Because if the Conservatives come in in Canada, they're gonna cancel that so they're being well paid to support the Liberals and it also tells you

37:30That only the most spineless self-hating worm of a human being would retain

37:35Any position in the Canadian media

37:38Because when you're bought and paid for who on earth with any integrity would want to stay

37:43Can I write something critical about the Liberals? Well, you can but we won't be able to pay you. Oh, okay

37:50That's no problem. I can do that. I

37:53Don't know

37:55It is a significant

37:58Issue

37:59The mainstream media versus the alternative media. I haven't looked this up for a long time

38:05So on YouTube I have over 900,000 subscribers. I've close to 400,000 subscribers on Twitter now YouTube

38:12Actually, if you don't share your subscriptions, they can't even see your subscriber base like who subscribed to you

38:19So I'm and given how I don't think I'm controversial. I think I'm rational but apparently rational. It's just controversial these days

38:26So I probably have well north of a million subscribers

38:30USA Today has 832,000

38:34I think they have more than one person

38:37NBC and CBC are cooking around a million

38:41I have

38:43900,000 to a million

38:45That is a significant

38:47Competitive edge I can go faster. I can get material out quicker. I'm not bought and paid for

38:54I'm not reliant upon

38:56Regularly regulatory compliance with diversity mandates from my HR department

39:01My HR department is a parrot

39:04so

39:06Can the media write about us objectively we're kicking their butts

39:13We're faster we're more honest we're more trustworthy. I don't take any hands. I

39:19Don't have any monetization I

39:22Am reliant upon telling the truth to the audience

39:25I have work on the Socratic business model, which is talk to people about philosophy and maybe they'll buy you lunch

39:30Thanks for lunch, by the way, it's gonna be it

39:32So can you know they write about us and I don't think people understand that they're writing about their competitors who are kicking their butts

39:39So when they say oh this person is terrible this person is terrible do people know

39:46What the reality is of the competitive business situation and

39:50They don't even say well

39:53We are gonna talk a lot of trash about this person

39:56They really are standing between us and the paradise of financial money, right

40:01They don't say that don't say well, I'm riding around a direct competitor. So be sure to take what I say in context

40:05I never say that we're being objective. We're writing objectively about the people

40:11Who are winning hearts and minds away from us at a ferocious rate?

40:17So

40:20The solution will not come from the state

40:23they may try and

40:25And then they'll find out how powerful the tech giants really are

40:29The solution is going to come from us and from you

40:34Who do you support?

40:36Who do you give your money to who do you give your eyeballs to who do you give your shares to who do you give?

40:40your clicks to

40:45Hardship

40:47Makes us stronger

40:50The fact that we're facing a countercurrent of abuse of

40:55deplatforming

40:56Means that we have to be stronger and smarter and better

40:59Without loving it. I welcome the conflict as the chance to improve to be better

41:05Now the MSM the mainstream media running to the government CNN not doing well, who do they run to?

41:14They run to the teacher

41:16They run to the social media companies they demand people be deplatformed and

41:22They succeed sometimes but they will fail in the long run because it's corrupt. It's vicious. It's underhanded

41:30Rather than improve themselves rather than look in the mirror and say why is it that

41:35One guy one man one woman one tiny team can beat us. Why what are we doing wrong?

41:41What do we need to fix? What do we need to improve? What are we not listening to?

41:45Rather than do that

41:47They attempt to call in the airstrike of social outrage and de-platforming on their competitors, which means they get weaker every day

41:55We get stronger. We may be de-platformed. We cannot be silenced

42:00Now, of course as they get weaker they get more dangerous

42:04It's very common phenomenon in life. You have almost nothing more to fear

42:08Then a weak person a strong person will confront you a weak person will poison you

42:17My concern

42:20Is that all of this de-platforming leads us to self-censor that's the great danger

42:25To say well, there's a smoking crater where this guy was as a smoking crater where this woman was

42:29So I'm not going to touch this subject. I'm not going to touch that subject. I'm gonna self-censor then they've won

42:35We've lost not just our channels not just our

42:40incomes not just our influence but

42:43our virtue our civilization

42:47De-platforming is a confession of failure. It's a confession that you cannot meet the arguments. So you must silence the human being

42:53It's the ultimate ad hominem, which is a confession of loss

42:58So we must resist resist with all of our might the great temptation to self-censor

43:05You

43:08There's no guarantee that we will succeed

43:11I'm

43:14A deep believer in free will

43:18There are larger historical forces, but it comes down the future comes down to the will of the individuals

43:25whoever wants the future more

43:28We'll get the future. I

43:30Want a future of reason of debate of challenge of free speech I

43:36Don't want people de-platformed. I don't want people who disagree with me to lose their jobs

43:41To be slandered to be libeled to be censored to be silenced

43:47Everybody has something to add

43:50That is a story of civilization that is a story of an open society and that is how we improve

43:57We are not done, you know, we're not we're not finished as human beings we have not reached our perfection and we never will

44:07We can't stop at this point in history and say we have finally achieved so much wisdom that we know who to silence

44:12We know who's evil. We know who's wrong

44:15We know who should just shut up and go away and we will destroy the lives of anybody who disagree with us

44:21That is a hubris in a vanity

44:24That Satan himself would blush before we're not done

44:31Of course people are going to be offended by progress do you think slave owners weren't upset?

44:36When slavery ended do you think that the aristocrats weren't upset when serfdom ended do you think that?

44:44Misogynists weren't upset when women got rights being upset means you're getting somewhere

44:51Being upset is not an argument. It is not a repudiation of human progress

44:56It is a confession that you're upset. Okay, fine. You're upset

45:00Learn to manage your own emotions

45:02Otherwise, you will end up being a tyrant to others if you cannot manage yourself. You will end up being forced to control others and

45:09It is not my job to manage your emotions. It is not your job to manage my emotions. It is our job to be honest

45:16To confess our discomfort to put it aside

45:20and pursue the truth

45:22And pursue the conversation

45:24Nobody has a monopoly on the truth

45:29when we accept that

45:31We get to keep this wonderful civilization where I can stand before you who may disagree with me enormously have my say

45:38Get your feedback

45:40And we progress

45:44Thank you very much

45:50You

45:52Well, thank you so much for enjoying this latest to free domain show on philosophy

45:57And I'm going to be frank and ask you for your help your support your encouragement and your resources

46:03please like subscribe and share and all of that good stuff to get philosophy out into the world and

46:08also equally importantly go to free domain comm forward slash donate to help out the show to give me the

46:16Resources that I need to bring more and better philosophy to an increasingly desperate world

46:21So thank you so much for your support my friends free domain

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