0:06

If you were on social media this past weekend, you

0:08

might have seen some users who were really upset over

0:10

a new policy. Instagram

0:12

decided to remind us just how much they

0:15

suck with their latest update. Now

0:17

the new default setting will limit the political

0:19

content you might otherwise seek. Meta

0:22

is literally censoring political topics off

0:24

of Instagram and Facebook. This

0:26

comes just a couple weeks after the House passed

0:28

a bill that aims to ban TikTok if the

0:30

company doesn't change owners. Foreign adversaries

0:33

like the Chinese Communist Party pose the

0:35

greatest national threat of our time. It

0:38

seems like everyone, or at least everyone's mom, wants

0:40

to rein in the power of social media. They're

0:43

worried about their data being stolen, or the

0:45

election being influenced by propaganda, or

0:47

about their kids' brains being fried. Jay

0:51

Caspian King, a staff writer at The New

0:53

Yorker, shares some of those concerns. But

0:56

at the same time, he believes that access

0:58

to social media is a First Amendment right, even

1:01

if we're accessing it way too much. I

1:04

think that the structure of the

1:06

internet of all social media is

1:09

to argue about politics. And

1:11

I think that is baked into it, and I don't

1:13

think you can ever fix it. You're

1:16

listening to The Political Scene. I'm Tyler Foggett, and

1:18

I'm a senior editor at The New Yorker. In

1:26

your latest column, you wrote that we

1:28

should resist a society in which every

1:30

human interaction gets processed through an algorithm

1:32

and broadcast out to a frequently nasty

1:34

public. I'm wondering if you can

1:36

talk a little bit about what this resistance to

1:38

social media has looked like over the years and

1:40

how it has evolved. Yeah,

1:43

I mean, I think that there's two

1:45

levels of it. The first is happening

1:47

on the sort of official government level,

1:49

right, where there have been all these

1:51

attempts to regulate social media companies. I

1:54

think for almost the

1:56

entirety of his reign as the

1:58

CEO of Facebook, for example, now,

2:01

meta, Mark Zuckerberg has been

2:03

just routinely hauled in front of Congress. I

2:05

mean, you know, it's almost like a clock,

2:07

right? Like there he is in front of

2:09

Congress again. And so those efforts have not

2:11

really yielded too much in the way of

2:14

regulating social media and there's some very good

2:16

reasons for that, right? Like I'm not sure

2:18

if the Congress or the government is really

2:20

should be doing any of this. But on

2:23

the individual level, I think that some of

2:25

what inspired me to write about this and

2:27

this is actually, you know, something I write about quite

2:29

a bit is that I generally find

2:31

it odd that there is so little

2:34

resistance on a personal level, right? Or

2:36

even on a small community level to

2:38

these types of devices and to social

2:41

media generally. We expect the government to do

2:43

it instead of just doing it ourselves. Right,

2:45

that there isn't like, for example, phone-free

2:47

communes, right? Like I only say that

2:50

like partially facetiously, like

2:52

there is not social movements

2:54

to really get yourself away

2:56

from the internet. And I've

2:59

thought for a long time about why that

3:01

is because it just seems so natural that,

3:03

you know, this thing is taking over people's

3:06

lives that people generally have a negative impression

3:08

of it and an increasingly negative perception of

3:10

it. And that generally when those

3:12

types of things happen, those conditions present themselves and

3:15

you see little pockets of people

3:17

who consciously object to it

3:20

and push themselves away. And

3:22

yeah, I just

3:24

have not seen too much of it, you know.

3:26

I am personally invested in trying to find it

3:28

because I feel like I would join such a

3:30

society, right, at some point. But yeah, there's not

3:32

much to it and that the question of why

3:34

has been really interesting to me. So

3:36

when you talk about like phone-free communes or something

3:38

of that kind, I mean it seems like what

3:41

you're referring to is sort of the way in

3:43

which social media has destroyed our attention spans. But

3:45

when we think about the way that social media

3:47

is talked about by the government,

3:49

usually the conversation is centered around

3:51

misinformation and, you know, at least

3:53

in the case of TikTok, potential

3:56

national security concerns. And I'm wondering if you

3:58

can speak a little to how Are

4:00

there different concerns or whether you think

4:02

that the misinformation stuff is actually more

4:04

of like a Trojan horse for the

4:06

actual concern among parents, which is

4:08

just that these phones and computers

4:10

and apps are kind of ruining

4:13

their kids' lives to some extent?

4:15

Right, yeah. I

4:17

do think there's two levels to that critique,

4:19

right? The first is basically what

4:21

you said, which is that social media

4:23

is harmful for a number of reasons

4:26

outside of just like one's well-being and

4:28

sense of self and ability

4:30

to connect with other people. That there

4:32

is a sense that there is so

4:34

much disinformation, misinformation on the internet and

4:36

that it is profoundly affecting political

4:39

outcomes, right? So, you know, obvious

4:41

example being 2016 election, there is

4:43

all sorts of talk about how there are

4:46

these bot farms in Estonia or whatever in

4:48

Russia and that they were tricking

4:50

people into believing things that would cause

4:52

them to vote for Donald Trump or

4:54

to undermine democracy, et cetera.

4:57

I personally am quite skeptical of that type

4:59

of work. I don't

5:01

think that social media has that much

5:03

of an effect. I think it does

5:05

have an effect. I think it's generally

5:07

overblown when talked about as having a

5:09

sort of totalizing effect that we can

5:12

explain everything via disinformation.

5:14

I think one example that I've always

5:16

found interesting was that there is

5:18

a study done by a group

5:20

of academics about misinformation and the

5:23

Asian American community. What

5:25

they concluded was that the reason why

5:27

Asian Americans were opposed to

5:30

affirmative action was because

5:32

of misinformation, which to me was

5:34

kind of an outrageous claim because

5:38

I think that a lot of Asian Americans

5:40

felt that things like the Harvard case, for

5:42

example, were showing discrimination against them and that

5:44

that was why they were – that's

5:47

why they opposed affirmative action,

5:49

right? They felt like there's a misapplication

5:51

of that term and an overexpansion of

5:53

that term. And so I'm somewhat skeptical

5:56

Towards that part. In Terms of propaganda,

5:58

I Think that – In terms it

6:00

tick tock it's very hard. You know, right

6:02

through a white. By. Dance or tic

6:05

toc are doing. These things are quite cloudy

6:07

stuff. But. If. It is

6:09

propaganda. The First Amendment Supreme Court has

6:11

clearly shown that markets have the right

6:13

to receive propaganda and serve for that

6:15

reason. Like, I'm not as concerned with

6:17

that as well, because they think it's

6:19

part of no freedom of speech to

6:21

say that you can receive propaganda. Basically.

6:24

Every single thing that people are trying to

6:26

do to suppress social media networks is an

6:28

infringement on the first Mm. I think it's

6:30

quite clear and Nine or they can, I

6:32

don't you don't have to be I'd are

6:34

raving first amendment person like I am to

6:36

actually believe that I just pretty it's pretty

6:39

settled court stuff that says s on explain.

6:41

How that's the case? Because I guess I'm

6:43

wondering like let's say that I'm the government

6:45

bans tic toc. You would assume that all

6:47

the creators on that platform would. Then you know. Treat

6:50

you tube swords and Instagram real

6:52

themselves. How is he getting rid

6:54

of one app Were limiting one

6:56

app necessarily conflicting with. The. First

6:59

Amendment. It's. More that it is

7:01

not the expression of free speech,

7:03

it is the. Ability

7:06

to receive speech, So.

7:08

In article, I talk about this case com

7:10

Lamont vs Postmaster General From Nineteen Sixty Five

7:12

to Meal Jaffer who has said that head

7:14

of the Knight Foundation at Columbia sort of

7:16

direct me to this case because he's written

7:18

about it as well. Basically they're the man

7:21

and Ninety Sixty Five years philosopher. He was

7:23

I'm ah, socialist and he was trying to

7:25

debt and tapia something called the painting or

7:27

of the array and if is explicit. Chinese

7:30

profit and such a from a

7:32

Florida and I'm stressed that just

7:34

there's no light hiding anything. It's

7:36

not club and sober. At the

7:39

times, United States had this law

7:41

that if you wanted explicit foreign

7:43

propaganda from a. small

7:45

number of country is right that are deemed to

7:47

be hostile that you would have to fill out

7:50

a little reply card so i do post office

7:52

or data and their it's a we got this

7:54

propaganda we just really want to make sure that

7:56

you wanna have you checked and send back to

7:59

supply card then will send it to you, right? And

8:01

so Lamont sued the Postmaster General saying

8:03

that just the act of filling out

8:06

this little reply card, after which you

8:08

would still get the propaganda, right, was

8:11

violating his right to receive

8:13

information because he would have to be putting himself

8:15

essentially on a list. And the

8:17

court agreed with him, right? And this

8:19

is still upheld at this point. And

8:21

so the right to receive propaganda

8:23

or the right to receive any type of

8:26

information that you want to make those types

8:28

of decisions for yourself is part of free

8:30

speech. And so eliminating something

8:32

based on the threat of propaganda, right,

8:34

I think is a violation of the

8:36

First Amendment. What do you

8:38

think is the distinction between someone kind of like opting

8:40

in to receiving a certain kind of

8:42

political propaganda, say

8:45

choosing to subscribe to a communist magazine

8:47

versus going on TikTok to

8:49

see dancing videos, and then the

8:51

algorithm for some reason gives you propaganda

8:53

of some kind? I

8:56

don't think there's a distinction, but I understand

8:58

I'm in the minority. Part of what

9:00

I've started to realize in my advancing

9:03

age is that people don't really

9:05

care about the First Amendment in

9:08

so much. And for

9:10

a while, I thought that they do. But they do

9:12

until they don't. Yeah, yeah, it's like very, the people

9:15

who are, like

9:17

I'm not saying an end type of good way,

9:19

right, but the people who are just kind of

9:21

absolutist and principled about it, we're sort of dwindling

9:23

in number. And so

9:26

I would say there's no difference, right, and that people

9:28

still have the right to do that, and they have

9:30

the right to distinguish what is

9:33

propaganda and what is not propaganda. And

9:35

they also have the ability to

9:37

just not look at TikTok, right? And so

9:39

I think that those are decisions that

9:41

should be left to the individual. And I think

9:43

that governments trying to interfere with that

9:46

is bad. However, I

9:48

have a daughter, right, and I don't

9:50

want my daughter to be on social media. My

9:53

concern is that I don't want her on

9:55

those platforms, which obviously is like a real,

9:58

like it's not particularly like

10:00

that. Everyone

10:02

should be able to access these platforms, but not my daughter.

10:04

It's almost quite NIMBY-ish. And

10:08

so that's the tension I think that's happening

10:10

right now. And I think the

10:12

question that people need to ask and that I

10:15

think a lot of people need to ask is,

10:17

am I willing to sacrifice some

10:19

civil liberties if it means that

10:22

my child will not be on social media? Is

10:25

that an okay compromise to do? I

10:27

would say no, right? But

10:29

I think that most people would say yes, and I think that's

10:31

sort of what – I think that is a direction

10:34

that we're heading in right now. I'm

10:36

wondering about like some of the smaller

10:38

restrictions that states like Utah have tried

10:40

to impose, calling for age restrictions and

10:42

for parental controls on these apps. I'm

10:44

wondering what the free speech argument or concern is

10:46

there. Oh, yeah. That's another place.

10:49

So Florida passed a bill that

10:51

is similar to the Utah bill in that

10:54

it creates an age restriction,

10:56

and I think at least

10:58

in Utah it would enforce penalties on the social

11:00

media company if they were out of compliance with

11:02

it. The free speech argument

11:04

against that is that people under the 18 also have

11:07

free speech rights, right? And

11:09

that social media is the public square,

11:11

which is something that the court has

11:13

essentially said, right? And which I

11:15

think any single person who pays

11:17

any attention would say is true, right? That social

11:20

media has become the public square, even if

11:22

it is privately owned. And that

11:24

young people should have the right to

11:26

access that type of stuff and make

11:28

their voices heard or express their opinion about

11:30

anything and not wait until they're 18. There's

11:33

an additional problem with this, which

11:36

is that – in terms of the First

11:38

Amendment, which is that to verify one's age,

11:40

like how do you do that, right? In

11:42

Utah at least you need it to provide

11:44

a state ID. That means that anybody without

11:46

a state ID means that everybody who

11:48

cannot provide age verification in the way that

11:50

the state of Utah wants, is

11:53

now going to also be banned from the

11:55

public square, right? So it doesn't just infect

11:57

children, it infects people without ideas as well.

12:00

Jay, I'd like to ask you more about your

12:02

own experience on these apps and also your perception

12:05

of what's driving the public discourse about them, but

12:07

first we're going to take a quick break. You'll

12:10

hear more of the political scene from The New Yorker

12:12

in just a moment. If

12:18

you like the show, we'd love it if you could leave us

12:20

a rating and review on the podcast platform of

12:22

your choice. And while you're there, don't

12:24

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12:26

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12:31

come to The New Yorker Radio Hour for

12:33

conversations that go deeper with people you

12:36

really want to hear from, whether it's

12:38

Bruce Springsteen or Questlove or Olivia Rodrigo.

12:41

Liz Cheney, we're the godfather

12:43

of artificial intelligence, Jeffrey Hinton,

12:46

or some of my extraordinarily well-informed

12:48

colleagues at The New Yorker. So

12:51

join us every week on The New Yorker

12:53

Radio Hour wherever you listen to podcasts. I

13:07

have a confession to make, which is that I

13:09

actually don't have TikTok, you know, all of the

13:11

talk of the national security concerns. You know, we

13:13

work in journalism. I just thought better not to

13:15

have it, even though The New Yorker

13:17

now has a TikTok account, so maybe I should just

13:20

get over that. But I'm

13:22

curious about your personal relationship with the app,

13:24

since you've mentioned that you are worried about

13:26

your kids, you know, kind of becoming addicted

13:28

to it. I

13:31

do use it a lot. At the beginning

13:33

of TikTok, I thought it was the best

13:35

social media app ever because it was quite

13:37

international. And I could

13:39

basically train my algorithm to do stuff

13:43

like watch construction workers in India

13:45

who would post TikToks about what their days were

13:47

like. And this was like fascinating to me. I

13:49

don't know what, I didn't know what, you know,

13:51

northern Indian construction workers' life

13:54

was like. There was a whole

13:56

bunch of sort of nature videos out of China

13:58

that I found really interesting. The most

14:01

popular one was like the people would sort of

14:03

set up by a stream and catch a fish

14:06

and cook it next to the stream. And

14:08

it's like the most relaxing, beautiful thing that

14:10

you will ever see. And

14:12

I felt like, you know, like the sort of international

14:14

component to it was going to be really

14:17

eye-opening, right? And in a

14:19

way, I could sort of funnel

14:21

myself away from all the dancing teens for

14:23

months. Like I use this

14:26

app daily and I never saw any of

14:28

that stuff, right? I didn't know who Charlie

14:30

D'Amelio or who any of these people were.

14:32

I still don't really, you know? But

14:34

since then, it's become much more typical, right?

14:36

It's become everything I think is kind of

14:39

funneled towards the same thing. You can't train

14:41

it in the same type of way. And

14:43

so I don't know, I use it much less than

14:46

I did because I find it to be frustrating. I'm

14:48

like very uninterested. I'm 44 years old. Like

14:51

I'm not out of virtue. I just can't

14:54

actually physically care about a lot

14:56

of this stuff that happens on

14:58

TikTok. So

15:01

yeah, I don't know. I don't think

15:03

that it's necessarily worse than YouTube shorts.

15:05

I don't think it's worse than Instagram

15:07

reels. I think there's larger

15:10

questions around it, you know, at the root.

15:12

But in terms of the viewer experience, like

15:14

I don't really see much difference between any

15:16

of them. In fact, I think this is something that

15:18

happens to almost everybody, which is that while

15:22

I'm just scrolling through, I oftentimes

15:24

forget which app I'm on. I

15:27

don't remember if I'm an Instagram or TikTok or

15:29

YouTube shorts. And then when I find out, I'm

15:31

just like kind of surprised by what app I'm

15:33

on because it's all the same. I mean,

15:35

all the videos like I am, as I

15:37

said, I don't use TikTok, but I do

15:40

watch Instagram reels and YouTube shorts and I'll

15:42

often send my friends videos from those platforms

15:44

and then they'll say, oh, I saw this

15:47

on TikTok. So I'm pretty sure that I

15:49

am basically on TikTok, even if I'm technically

15:51

I'm not. You know, since the content does

15:53

seem to be, you know, quite similar among

15:56

the various platforms, I mean, I'm wondering how

15:58

much of the TikTok hate should we be

16:00

attributing to the fact that this is a non-American

16:02

company? Why is it that we

16:04

are seeing so many efforts to ban TikTok

16:07

but never meta or X? I

16:09

don't want to fully minimize the

16:11

national security concerns, right? Because I

16:13

think that there is

16:15

something odd about the fact that

16:18

so many American teenagers and young

16:20

people are completely addicted to an

16:22

app that won't really tell us what they're

16:25

doing, right? That is quite vague about what

16:27

happens to the data. And

16:29

so perhaps there is a national security concern,

16:31

however, I would like I said

16:33

before, I would need it articulated much more

16:35

clearly than it has been articulated by the

16:37

people who are trying to, you know,

16:40

what I see as a de facto ban

16:42

of TikTok. In terms of privacy and data,

16:45

I do not think that this is a

16:47

particularly compelling argument for the fact because

16:50

basically all your data

16:52

is already on for sale anyway, right? There

16:55

are these data brokers who

16:57

collect and sell people's data. China

17:00

at any point could approach one of these people

17:02

and they could just buy the same data, right?

17:05

Unless you believe that there is some

17:07

sort of special data that TikTok harvests,

17:09

right? That is not keystrokes and facial

17:11

recognition and your address and all the

17:14

other data that is readily for sale

17:16

on the open market right now. You

17:19

would also have to explain to me what that special

17:21

data is that only TikTok has and that, you know,

17:23

you couldn't just go and buy on the open market

17:25

from the data broker right now. So

17:27

I don't find that reason to be particularly compelling

17:29

either. But those are the two things. I

17:31

just feel like they haven't been articulated in

17:34

a way that is convincing to me. So

17:37

you've been on these apps for a while. How

17:39

much has the content on these apps changed from

17:41

your perspective over the years? Because I

17:43

feel like when TikTok first came out, it was all about

17:45

dancing. And now it seems to be way more focused on

17:47

politics than it used to be. I

17:50

do think that since 2020 that there's

17:53

been an acceleration of political

17:55

content on these platforms. But I think

17:57

that's probably user driven. that

18:00

there is a virality around things

18:03

like police killings or around

18:05

footage from war, and that

18:08

opportunistic people on these platforms are

18:10

always going to use those moments

18:12

as a way to promote

18:15

their own brand or to get more

18:17

followers or whatever, right? I

18:19

think the idea that there is

18:21

some sort of secret plot to

18:24

promote this type of stuff to

18:26

sow division, honestly, it feels very

18:28

reminiscent of many anti-Semitic tropes that

18:30

are out there about how George Soros

18:33

or whoever is ceding dissent

18:35

within the American public through controlling

18:38

the media, et cetera, et cetera, right? In

18:42

terms of TikTok and China, the reason why

18:44

such theories still seem plausible

18:46

to us, again, is because ByteDance

18:49

TikTok not really clear about what they're doing. And

18:51

there's a way in which they could be a

18:53

little bit more transparent. And I think it would

18:55

put some of these fears to rest. However,

18:58

I think even if they did put these

19:00

fears to rest to somebody like me, that

19:03

the accusations of propaganda would still

19:05

be there, right? Because obviously, people

19:08

make political hay at this point

19:10

by criticizing China. They do

19:12

these congressional hearings where they drag people

19:14

in front of Ted

19:16

Cruz or Tom Cotton. And

19:20

that there is a theater of interrogating these

19:23

social media companies, not just TikTok,

19:26

every social media company. And

19:28

that Congress at this point

19:31

and politicians, I think lawmakers, they

19:34

see some political benefit of seeing

19:36

themselves as being adversarial to these

19:38

companies, right? Nobody wants to defend

19:40

them at this point. And so within

19:43

that political atmosphere, I think one of the

19:45

charges that you would logically

19:48

place on somebody is that you're spreading propaganda,

19:50

right? But I don't know. What

19:53

is that propaganda? Why would it

19:55

be effective? What side is it

19:57

on? To what purpose is it, right? I will

19:59

say that. at the beginning of TikTok, I did

20:01

feel a lot better about China because

20:03

I would see these people fishing by these

20:05

beautiful streams and I'd be like, oh man,

20:08

that is a beautiful stream

20:10

in China, you know, but that's not like a

20:12

political propaganda, right? So, yeah, I

20:15

don't know. I think that overall

20:17

it's, I'm mostly

20:19

confounded by the arguments just because I think

20:22

as clear as TikTok bite dance is

20:24

being, I think, you know, Congress is

20:26

not really clear about what their problem

20:28

is here either. So Jay,

20:30

I want to ask you about something I noticed over

20:33

the weekend on Instagram and what it means as we

20:35

head into an election season, but first we have to

20:37

take another break. Hi,

20:46

I'm Lauren Goode. I'm a senior writer

20:48

at Wired and I'm co-host of Wired's

20:51

Gadget Lab along with Michael Kalore. Each

20:53

week on Gadget Lab, we tackle the

20:55

biggest questions in the world of technology

20:57

with reporters from inside the Wired newsroom.

20:59

We cover everything from personal tech. Because

21:02

asking people to put a computer on one of

21:04

the most personal and sensitive parts of your body

21:07

is just like, it's a big bet. Broader

21:09

trends in Silicon Valley. There are just

21:11

so many laid off workers out there

21:13

that workers just don't have a lot

21:15

of power. And the exciting and terrifying

21:17

world of AI. It's inevitable that the

21:19

internet is going to be filled with

21:21

like AI generated nonsense. And so he

21:23

just thinks he might as well make

21:26

some money playing a small part in

21:28

a thing that he sees as unstoppable.

21:30

Wired's Gadget Lab is here to keep you

21:32

informed and to keep it real. The

21:35

entire point of the phone

21:38

should be on some level to

21:40

hate it. New

21:42

episodes of Gadget Lab are available weekly,

21:44

wherever you get your podcasts. Over

21:56

the weekend, I noticed on my Instagram that lots

21:58

of people were said about the fact

22:00

that Meta, which is the company that owns Instagram,

22:03

is now limiting content that it deems to be

22:05

political. It seems like a kind of wild thing

22:07

to do in an election year, and that it

22:09

could have a decent impact considering that at least

22:11

half of adults in the US get their news

22:13

at least sometimes from social media. And

22:15

I'm wondering what you make of this move. I

22:18

think it's done out of

22:20

a fear of litigation and a fear

22:22

of what happened in 2016, right, with

22:26

News Feed and all the claims

22:28

around disinformation. When Instagram

22:31

launched threads, right, which was their

22:33

Twitter competitor, they said the same thing.

22:35

The CEO of Instagram said that they

22:38

were going to sort of de-emphasize political

22:40

content. And then the question

22:42

arose, well, what are we going to talk

22:44

about? It's really vapid on threads, I got

22:46

to say. And so what

22:49

ends up happening is that anytime like an

22:51

internet forum basically lays a law down and

22:53

says we can't talk about the thing that

22:55

everybody's talking about because it's too toxic, then

22:57

people post photos of their dogs, right? And

22:59

then it's the most boring thing. I have

23:02

a dog. I love dogs. But

23:04

I don't need to see everyone's dog, especially

23:06

strangers that I don't know on the internet. It's

23:08

like I don't need to see your dog at all. So

23:13

I think this is part of a long-term move.

23:16

Adam Massari, I think, who is the CEO

23:19

of Instagram, he was also in charge of

23:21

News Feed in 2013. And

23:25

I think that this narrative of how

23:28

meta, Facebook, Instagram, all these

23:30

companies within the same group

23:33

affect political outcomes has been

23:35

an ongoing conversation within that

23:37

company. And I think that

23:39

generally speaking, they have decided at

23:41

this point to sort of step back, right? They don't

23:44

want to be a part of it. They want to

23:46

sell themselves as a tech company. They still want to

23:48

sell themselves as connectors or whatever,

23:51

right, between people. But they

23:53

don't want to be the world's newsfeed anymore. And

23:56

I Can actually understand why they feel

23:58

that way. I Do think that... At

24:00

some level it is. Really?

24:02

Gonna restrict their popularity, but maybe that

24:04

is like a decision that that they're

24:06

willing to make at this point. It's.

24:09

Interesting because they also say that I'm. No

24:11

Matter has said we want pro actively recommend

24:13

Content About Politics on in a recommendation services

24:16

across Instagram and threads. but if you still

24:18

want these posts recommended to you, you can

24:20

kind of go into your settings and basically

24:22

click a button and all the sudden you'll

24:24

see them again. And so I've been wondering.

24:26

if that you know kind of makes a

24:28

difference to you when it comes. To the

24:30

Freedom of Speech concerns as you can.

24:33

Press buttons and and make it. go back. To normal

24:35

or whether the expectation that people will

24:37

go and proactively do this is enough

24:39

to raise concerns. I'm a

24:41

surface as I was unaware that adheres

24:43

or I know my initial responses more

24:46

if I go. To. Sit

24:48

personal was invalid or for what they've

24:50

as sick as I don't really fascinated

24:52

of psychological experiment rail I'd like to

24:55

reverse filtered say we arrive my own

24:57

citizens of snow give me all the

24:59

Dvr that horrible above that are devi

25:01

all the arguments I will. I would

25:04

do it for it either I turned

25:06

around and say research off. Right

25:09

right. It's funny that yeah, were at the point where.

25:11

We're kind of equating like political

25:13

content with yeah, content. That's like,

25:15

you know, Sexually. Explicit

25:18

or you know, violent or something.

25:20

I don't think it will work

25:22

on. I think that the. Structure.

25:25

That it or not have. Also some

25:27

media is to argue about politics and

25:29

I says that is baked into a

25:31

man on think you can ever six

25:33

it from it and that. Pays.

25:36

Grayson said beginning of the internet people

25:39

have used message boards or the connectivity

25:41

or that. Technology that allows

25:43

you to send a bunch of

25:45

tax from one place to another

25:47

instantaneously. Third, just argue with one

25:50

another And to fight com. There's.

25:52

never been an internet or aversion on

25:54

the that is not descended into this

25:57

i it's all every single pharmacists reddit

25:59

everything And so the idea that you

26:01

could do it by trying to

26:03

limit this stuff, I think, is outrageous.

26:06

They'll just fight in the comments, right?

26:08

Or they'll fight of like a whatever,

26:10

right? There'll be arguments everywhere. I feel

26:13

like I've noticed a bunch of this lately where there'll be

26:15

like an Instagram account that, you

26:17

know, post something on Instagram. And

26:20

then you'll have like a whole subreddit

26:22

devoted to just like tearing

26:24

this Instagram apart and debating it

26:26

and whatnot. And it seems

26:28

like you're right that these conversations are going to

26:30

happen. The political conversations will happen

26:33

either in the comments of the app or

26:35

they'll happen on a separate app. But like

26:37

it's impossible to separate the

26:39

content on Instagram, even

26:41

the dog photos from the

26:43

rest of it because people seem to have a tendency

26:45

to want to, you know, engage in political debate whenever

26:47

they have an opportunity to. Right. It's

26:50

something I noticed this morning, right, which is something

26:52

that I thought about more than

26:54

I should. You know, anytime there's a

26:56

K-pop video of somebody dancing, right, an

26:59

Asian person dancing, the first or second

27:01

comment is always a discussion

27:03

of cultural appropriation,

27:05

whether it's appropriate

27:08

for Asian people

27:10

in Asia to be doing hip-hop

27:12

dances. And they're

27:14

always at the top because those are the most

27:17

engaged with comments, right? There's huge arguments underneath. It's

27:19

just like- It's way better than like, hey,

27:21

cool video. This morning

27:23

it was a 10-year-old in Vietnam who was

27:25

doing a dance, and that was the first

27:28

comment. There's like a thousand responses to it,

27:30

right? Like you can't stop it, right? Like

27:32

you would think that here's a cute child

27:35

dancing would be free from political conversation. But

27:37

of course it immediately goes to that type of place.

27:39

So I'm quite skeptical that something like

27:42

that would ever work. I'm

27:45

wondering what you think content moderation should

27:47

look like if it has to exist. And

27:50

if there are any platforms out there that seem to

27:52

be doing a better job than others. I

27:55

don't think it should really exist,

27:59

but I do think that's- certain things like people

28:02

being killed, violence, depictions

28:06

of sexual violence should

28:09

obviously not be, there

28:11

should be restrictions upon that. In

28:13

terms of any type of speech or

28:15

whatever hate speech, I'm much more resistant

28:17

to the idea that people should be

28:20

banned from platforms or that content moderation

28:22

should exist for those types of things

28:24

unless they're physical threats

28:26

of violence. And so

28:28

ironically enough, despite my general

28:30

feelings about Elon Musk,

28:33

I think that if you look at

28:35

the totality of what has happened, especially

28:37

since October 7 in terms

28:39

of the war in Gaza, that

28:43

there is much more free conversations

28:45

about that, I think, on Twitter

28:47

than anywhere else. And I think

28:50

that part of that is because

28:52

I think that Elon Musk's general

28:54

thoughts about free speech are completely

28:56

convoluted and mostly disingenuous. But I do

28:58

think there's part of it in which I'm not going

29:00

to regulate this because I already stick myself to this

29:02

position. I would probably say

29:04

they're doing a better job, but that's just because

29:07

I think that most things should be

29:09

OK. And again, I

29:11

don't think that's a very popular opinion. I

29:15

think people, I don't know, I'm Asian,

29:17

right? Sometimes people on these

29:19

social media platforms will call me a racial

29:21

slur. It doesn't happen very often, but occasionally

29:23

happens. And I don't know, I think they

29:25

should have the right to type that if

29:28

they want without getting banned from the platform.

29:30

I have the option to block them if

29:32

I want, right? And so I don't know.

29:36

I think that less moderation is good. Yeah,

29:39

my problem is that I'm, I guess, I think

29:41

really highly of myself. And so I kind of

29:43

want to be able to receive all

29:45

of the content, even if it's propaganda. And

29:47

I trust myself to be able to tell

29:49

the difference between the real stuff and the

29:51

fake stuff. And we

29:53

see the memes that went viral in 2016

29:56

that apparently had some effect on the election.

29:58

And I was like, ah, that wouldn't. That

30:00

wouldn't have gotten me. I don't

30:02

know, at the same time, I'm sort of like, oh, I guess

30:04

it's probably not great for a 12-year-old to be looking

30:07

at a bunch of propaganda on YouTube

30:09

or on TikTok. So it's

30:11

like, I'm cool with other people's content being moderated.

30:13

I just don't want mine to be moderated. So

30:17

when you're that much of a hypocrite, you just have

30:19

to be anti-moderation. You got to click that

30:21

button, right, on your sticker, and then get it

30:23

all to smash you in the face. I

30:28

think there are already safety controls for children,

30:30

right? And I think those are appropriate. In

30:33

reality, content moderation is done abroad,

30:35

right? It is outsourced. One of

30:37

the things that has always troubled

30:39

me about it is the idea

30:41

that some executives at a tech

30:43

company are making decisions that

30:45

they're outsourcing to overworked, underpaid people, say,

30:47

in the Philippines, who then have to

30:50

watch all this stuff and enact whatever

30:52

the policy is. It's

30:54

a really inexact system, right, is

30:56

one that is going to have

30:58

all sorts of failures

31:00

throughout. And I

31:02

think that the biggest failures are really at the

31:04

top, and that any time you have people

31:07

who are now controlling what is generally thought

31:09

of as a public square, who

31:11

are just making these decisions seemingly arbitrarily,

31:15

that it's probably

31:17

better to just figure out a way

31:19

to do it without them making those decisions, if

31:21

at all possible. We

31:23

talked earlier about Zuckerberg just constantly

31:25

having to do these congressional hearings

31:27

and whatnot. And so it seems

31:30

like it's less ideological.

31:33

We want the people on our platforms to be exposed

31:35

to the right things and more just a

31:38

matter of protection. I guess I'm just wondering why more

31:40

of them don't take the

31:43

approach of less moderation,

31:45

given that it seems like it

31:47

would be a good marketing strategy in some ways. Yeah,

31:50

I think they are afraid of getting hauled

31:52

in front of Congress over and over again. They

31:55

do see the polling that comes

31:57

out about the decreasing popularity of these.

32:00

of these platforms. I think

32:02

they do see things like the Utah bill

32:04

as being a public move against them that

32:06

is supported by large portions of the public

32:09

and they are wondering what

32:11

their future looks like and I don't think

32:14

that their future can just be, they think

32:16

they rightfully understand that their future can't just

32:18

be, hey we are

32:20

not the publisher right, and cite section 230

32:22

and then just kind of

32:24

move on with it over and over

32:26

again and say like no this is

32:28

a user doing it, it's not us,

32:30

you know this was what you saw

32:32

during the Reddit days right, Reddit sort

32:34

of asserting itself over and over saying

32:36

the stuff that happens is not on

32:38

them, it's on the user, it's not

32:40

their fault, it's the user's fault. I

32:42

found that compelling but eventually many many

32:44

people didn't and Reddit had to change

32:47

their rules. We're seeing a

32:49

large-scale version of that happening right now

32:51

and these companies I think are just

32:53

adjusting based on risk. So

32:55

you end your latest column on a

32:58

bit of a nihilistic note, basically you

33:00

question whether we can ever actually moderate

33:02

content online without infringing on the First

33:04

Amendment and whether instead we should just

33:06

let the internet quote run wild and

33:08

grow as big and stupid as it

33:10

can be. That way there's even

33:12

more reason to ignore it. For

33:14

those of us who care about free

33:16

speech and preventing brain rot on social

33:19

media, is that the only path forward?

33:21

Yeah I think so, I think that

33:23

people need to opt out and that

33:25

they need to basically say that the

33:27

government can't protect us from this and

33:29

that they won't and that the

33:32

companies are not going to do anything that

33:34

really compromises their bottom line, right, they're not

33:36

going to act judiciously or they're not going

33:38

to act in a benevolent type

33:40

of way and that we should probably

33:42

stop wondering when they'll do this

33:45

right, when they'll get it right. I don't think there

33:47

is a way to really get it right and

33:49

so I think that it falls on

33:51

the individual or on communities to then just

33:53

opt out of it and I think that

33:55

we haven't seen too much of it but

33:58

I think we'll start seeing more of it. in the

34:00

future, right, in the near future. I think

34:02

that there will be much more emphasis on

34:05

phones being damaging. I think there will be

34:07

much more emphasis on people

34:10

trying to live lives away from this sort

34:12

of stuff. At first, it'll

34:14

feel very culty, right, but I think that

34:16

it's kind of necessary at this point and

34:19

that it would be a good time to

34:21

keep an open mind to it, right, to

34:23

different ways of existing without devices

34:26

and without the internet. That's the only alternative

34:28

I can think of, but I don't know.

34:31

I live in Berkeley, California, so maybe it's

34:34

ingrained in me that communes are a

34:36

good way to go about life.

34:40

I have trouble picturing it in New York,

34:42

but it would be

34:45

nice to at least have the option

34:48

of an opt-out community. It seems

34:50

like right now it's the only way to do it is just to

34:53

resign yourself to being really disconnected

34:55

from everything that's going on in a

34:57

way that would be damaging to your

34:59

education if you're a kid or your

35:01

social life or your career. Right,

35:04

right. Parents generally want

35:06

this for their kids, but they

35:09

all say the same thing, which is that

35:11

it's impossible because their

35:13

kids enter a stage where

35:15

they need it to have any

35:17

friends at all. Now, there's very many

35:20

different versions of it, right? Kids play

35:22

a lot of video games online, right?

35:24

And so you can't do that. They

35:26

text back and forth, can't do that.

35:28

I mean, you're really sort of setting

35:31

your kid up for a social disaster in that

35:33

type of way. Most parents, I think, rightfully don't

35:35

want that. And so, yeah, it

35:38

takes, I think, a community effort at that level.

35:42

Well, thank you so much, Jay. Thank

35:48

you. Jay Caspian Kang is a staff writer at

35:50

The New Yorker. You can read his latest column

35:53

at New yorker.com. This

35:55

has been the Political Scene. I'm Tyler

35:57

Foggett. The show is produced by Julia

35:59

Nutter. and edited by Sifni Karyuki

36:01

with production assistants from Mike Cushman. Our

36:04

executive producer is Steven Valentina. Chris

36:07

Bannon is Conde Nast's head of global audio. Our

36:10

theme music is by Alison Leighton Brown. Enjoy

36:12

your week and we'll see you next Wednesday.