← Christiane Amanpour Presents: The Ex Files
Christiane Amanpour Presents: The Ex Files
Q&A: Is social media amplifying society's most extreme voices?
00:22:10
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- [00:03]
Christiane Amanpour
This is a Global Player original podcast.
- [00:10]
Jamie Rubin
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Q and A episode, our bonus episode of the X Files with me, Christian Amanpour and Jamie Rubin. This is the episode where we, of course, answer all your questions. And so thank you to everyone who sent us questions in on all the platforms that you use, keep sending them in, and keep asking us what you want to know about, whether it's personal, whether it's professional, our experiences, et cetera. You can find us on social media. Our handle is manpurpod. Or email us amanpurpodlobal.com let's get started. So, Jamie and everybody, this week we've got something a little different and a little special because we're in New York for the 80th episode, if you like, of UNGA, the annual UN leaders summit where they come here and they give their speeches and they this year is going to be very important. It's happening right as we speak. Right now. This edition is joining Be Hope podcast. It's a takeover going out over UNGA Week with a collection of podcasts coming together to take a moment to consider where we can find hope in these really challenging times and in this world. So in that context, we are going to get a question which we're going to play now from the deputy secretary General of the United nations, asking us where we think we can see hope in her particular issue of interest. Here she is.
- [01:28]
Amina Mohamed
Hi, Christiane and Jamie, Amina Mohamed here, deputy secretary General of the UN at the United Nations. I'm seeing every day how much people depend on international collaboration, mostly to solve problems that no single country can face alone, from food insecurity and gender equality to really, really surreal conflicts and, of course, climate change. But I also see how fragile multilateralism can feel right now. From your perspective, what gives you hope that those in power, particularly in institutions like the un, can still deliver for people in a divided world?
- [02:07]
Jamie Rubin
So I've interviewed Amina Mohammed on women's issues, on UN issues. And I don't know, as bad as it is, Jamie, and as sort of defanged as the UN appears to be, I really do believe that only together can you actually fix some of these major, major issues, whether it's, you know, the issue of democracy, the issue of autocracy, but also climate change and even terrorism. I mean, these huge, huge issues don't just happen to one country. They don't know borders.
- [02:37]
Christiane Amanpour
Well, you're right. And the challenges in the world, as we've talked about, are transnational. They, whether it's Information warfare, climate change, disease, terrorism, all of these things. And, you know, one of the things I learned as the spokesman of the UN is there's a lot of different UN's. There's the UN Security Council, which gets the most attention because it's where the big countries sit. But then there are these agencies that are really powerfully effective. The one that I think of, when I think of effective, is unicef. One of my friends, Jordan, you know, was communications director at UNICEF over the last 20 years a couple of times. And I learned from her and through government, when I worked at the un, the ways in which UNICEF continues to help children all over the world, even while this other stuff's going on. So the Deputy Secretary General is right. Multinational solutions can work. The problem is when people think the UN can solve all problems, there's some things the UN can't solve, like the war in Ukraine, because Russia's on the Security Council and it's the invader. And if the invading country is on the Security Council, the Security Council is not going to be the place to solve the problem. And that's when you need to ignore the un. We did that on Kosovo. Russia wouldn't support a resolution to prevent a genocide in Kosovo. So we acted outside the UN Security Council's formal authority. But we had legitimacy, even if we didn't have legality. And so the trick with the un, it seems to me, is picking and choosing where it can work. UNICEF works, UNDP works, the High Commissioner on refugees. These things work. But what you can't do is expect it to solve the world's problems because we don't have a world government. And countries sometimes are the cause of the problems.
- [04:27]
Jamie Rubin
You know, in the un, you know, unfortunately, it was dragged through all sorts of resolutions and things during the Iraq war. And that was a completely, you know, complete disaster as they tried to get the UN on board as well.
- [04:38]
Christiane Amanpour
Shall we go to some questions?
- [04:39]
Jamie Rubin
Shall we?
- [04:39]
Christiane Amanpour
Carlos sent an email. One question I'd love to hear you explore is this. In an era where truth itself feels under siege, do you believe the role of the journalist is shifting more towards defending facts than reporting events?
- [04:53]
Jamie Rubin
I think unfortunately, we're having to defend facts more than we would would used to do. We always fact checked truth. Objectivity. Accuracy is our benchmark. That's just the tools of our craft. So we were never fast and loose with the truth, those of us who are, you know, serious journalists working for serious organizations. But now because, you know, facts are being challenged and denied. And if you remember, in the first Trump term, one of his people called them alternative facts. You know, we have to double down over and over again. So I think that takes up a lot of bandwidth. It is necessary, but it's very, very time consum. You know, we have a lot of issues about covering the news. There's a, you know, financial model in our organizations is getting more and more stressed. It's harder. But we are still out there in the most important stories and we still believe in covering them. And not only that, we believe that's that is what journalism is about. If it's not for us, who are going to be the eyes and ears of all of you, all of everybody to go to these places where you can't go or you wouldn't go, then how would you get the facts and the news and the stories?
- [05:58]
Christiane Amanpour
So, yeah, and here's what I'd like to say. We forget that the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the ABC News, cnn, they still tell us things by investigative journalism. And then we come to those facts that they uncovered seem like we always knew them, but we only knew them because of those investigative journalists. And that's the way I've standing on the sort of the dividing line between journalism and government. My whole career, I've seen how this happens. So the New York Times finds out that the NSA has been reading people's emails or whatever it was back in the day during the first second Bush administration. And then everybody talks about it like they knew it. They didn't know it until the New York Times broke it. CNN investigative units break stories. You've broken stories. And so I think people forget that while we're arguing over the polit of facts and, you know, this crazy idea of Trump folks that they can dictate what's true and what's not true. Meanwhile, the journalists do their work and we come to expect it. And most of what we read on every single, whether it's social media or television or newspapers started from some investigative journalist finding something out.
- [07:22]
Jamie Rubin
So to that point, the Pentagon said Friday, and I'm quoting here, it would impose new restrictions on reporters covering the Department of Defense, requiring them to pledge not to gather or use any information that had not been formally authorized for release or risk losing their credentials to cover the military.
- [07:40]
Christiane Amanpour
I mean, laughable, laughable, serious. All right.
- [07:43]
Jamie Rubin
Okay, next you go. Joy on email wants to know what can be done to avoid the US Descent into autocracy and what could have been done differently in other countries that faced a similar situation and did not avoid it. It feels as though we can't rely on the normal checks and balances that is the judiciary, nor are elected officials successfully challenging this administration, meaning the United States.
- [08:05]
Christiane Amanpour
Well, this is a tough question Joy has asked, and let me start. One of my favorite rules in life is when you don't know something, you say, I don't know. So the first answer is, I don't know. But let me try to speculate. For Joy and for everyone listening, our system isn't working very well right now. Fear has taken over leaders of our corporations, especially the ones that run media organizations like ABC News and NBC and cbs. They're afraid. And when you're afraid, you do things that you're gonna be ashamed of. And I think there are things that have gone on with these comedians and others that people, when they leave, they've got jobs, they're gonna be ashamed of themselves. And so what I want people to remember is, you know, when I was growing up, growing up, I always said, you know, what would I do when I. This was 1960s and the Holocaust had just recently happened? And I always said, what would I have done if I was in these horrible situations, facing these horrible things? Would I have been brave? And, you know, you always wonder, now, I never faced physical war in that sense, but I felt when the time came for me to be in government and we faced the possibility of seeing genocide and there was something we could do about it, I risked my job because I thought it was so important. And so that's what you need. You need people to be brave. So we ran into this senator again. I won't mention his name on the street today. He's brave. There are other brave senators and congressmen. And right now, finally, the Democratic leaders are saying, no, you can't just run roughshod over us. We're gonna not support the continuation of spending if you don't provide basic needs to the American people. And there's gonna be a possibly government shutdown. And this time, I think the Democrats are going to be more brave. But last point on this, I think the decision of the Supreme Court that's coming on the tariffs will tell us an enormous amount. The U.S. constitution is absolutely clear that the regulation of commerce belongs to Congress. President Trump has tried to take that power away. This isn't a gray area. This is clear. If the Supreme Court doesn't uphold those words in the Constitution, then I will no longer be able to say that our country is governed by the rule of law to the extent I thought it was. So that's Going to be a huge decision.
- [10:34]
Jamie Rubin
I would say judges and, you know, courts below the Supreme Court have also been very brave actually reading the law and coming down on the side of the law on many, many instances. And I would also say one of the ways to do it, certainly in our business, but maybe in others, is to band together. I genuinely believe that when people or groups of professionals or whatever are under threat, banding together, you know, one for all and all for one, the power of numbers, the power of, you know, having a, you know, a mission, a defensive posture, I think that's really, really important.
- [11:10]
Christiane Amanpour
Deborah, on email asks, can you please discuss the diplomatic and economic fallout from the Hyundai ICE raids. Will this have a chilling effect on international investments and manufacturing partnerships in America?
- [11:23]
Jamie Rubin
Well, look, it's just mentioning Hyundai. It's just been all over the place in South Korea. They are just livid. I mean, a lot of America's erstwhile and firm allies are just really upset by this. And it goes against also what President Trump said. He wants foreign companies to come on shore. Exactly. And that's what they were doing to an extent. And they had always had this understanding about who could work there and what level of visas and this and that they would require. And it's really, really shaken the foundation of a lot of nations views of what it means to be an ally of the United States, whether it's, you know, in terms of defense or in terms of economically. So I think, I don't know because I'm not an economist. Will this have a chilling effect on international investments? But in terms of, whoa, what's going on? It's having a chilling effect in the, in the heartlands.
- [12:17]
Christiane Amanpour
My view on this is that it does have a chilling influence effect on international investment in the United States. And let me say two things about this. Sometimes you feel that in the Trump administration, people have been empowered to do things with no clarity. It's like a band of bozos who are trying to do things, that one guy's doing one thing and the other guy's doing another thing. You know, on one hand they're saying, you know, we're stopping censorship, and on the other hand they're doing censorship. So I suspect this is a case of the band of bozos not getting their act together. And that President Trump does want investment in the United States and he'll probably figure out a way to appease in some way the South Korean government. But the damage is done regardless. And this idea that somehow foreigners are bad, you know, where did this come from? We're a nation of immigrants. We're in New York City. Every morning I get up and I look at the Statue of Liberty downtown where I live. My grandparents came through the Statue of Liberty in Ellis Island. I heard a statistic once that 1 out of 10 people in our country have parents or grandparents who lived in Brooklyn because of the Statue of Liberty. So this idea, President Trump's family came as immigrants. They weren't born here. They're not American Indians. Where did we get this idea that foreigners are bad? America is unique because it's the first country in the world that's based on an idea, not an ethnicity. The idea of freedom and democracy. And. And President Trump and his administration, through all of these things, are just destroying the basic idea of America.
- [13:57]
Jamie Rubin
One other thing, from India, they're very worried. All those people who send very accomplished scientists and doctors and people who are big in tech. And now the Trump administration is proposing $100,000 for future H1B visas. Those are a professional type of visa. That's. I mean, yeah, let's see if that. That becomes anything.
- [14:21]
Christiane Amanpour
I hope it doesn't.
- [14:32]
Jamie Rubin
I'll ask you what Adam wants to know. And he's also on email. With all the recent events like the Charlie Kirk assassination, it seems like social media and media amplifies the most extreme voices on the fringes. Do you both feel that the situation is genuinely worsening, or is the noise just being amplified by a vocal minority on either extreme? Well, I think, Adam, whatever it is, whether it's being amplified or whether it's, you know, whatever it is, a minority or not, it's genuinely getting worse because the very fact of the amplification, and as you mentioned, even a small group can have their, you know, their noise amplified beyond recognition and beyond proportion. It is very, very bad. And of course, the social media and the tech algorithms are designed to. To move people towards the extremes and to create anger and thr. Drive off anger and anger is clicks and clicks means money. And unfortunately, this is what's happening. I've been listening to so many of the tech pioneers talking about this. People who really believe that what they were doing was a benefit for humanity. And what they see is that benefit is rapidly being out, performed by the. By the malevolence that social media, the algorithms, bots, all of this is creating impersonal lives in political lives, in. In global geopolitics and geostrategic challenges. So it is very bad. And there's something that needs to happen. Regulations of some sort need to happen as they do to an extent in Europe. But when you consider that the current and future amplification will be generated by AI, we are in a very, very frightening space.
- [16:12]
Christiane Amanpour
So let me add to that. I agree with all of that. This is a case where we're in 100% agreement, madam. In the old days when there were angry men or angry women, they had to meet physically to join together, and they couldn't infuriate their opponents because they would have to go to Speaker's Corner in Hyde park and physically yell and scream until they could make people yell and scream because of the power of social media. That happens globally. So remember with the case of terrorism, what we realized with Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda is instead of these people having to meet, raise money, plan, train, and then conduct a terrorist attack physically, they could do it through email, through the Internet, through websites, and meet each other and train and organize and then conduct terrorist attacks remotely by having an order given in one country to people in another country. And that created this new global threat. It's the same here, because you don't need to move from your bloody couch and you can scream and yell into your phone and someone in the other part of the country who agrees with you can hear you instantly. And then you can organize into groups of haters. And what I think we need desperately is leaders who teach their countrymen and parents who teach their children to disagree agreeably and agree that someone who disagrees with you isn't a bad person. And this was something John McCain really distinguished himself when he was running for president and someone started saying something horrible about obama personal. And McCain stopped him and said, no, no, no, no, I don't agree with Obama, but he's a patriot and a good man. Donald Trump doesn't do that. And I think, and this is where someone will yell at me for this, I think the current leadership of the Republican Party doesn't do as much as the leadership of the Democratic Party to tell their people to disagree agreeably and instead calls for violence. When Elon Musk sends in a message about violence, it's monstrous. This is a man, the richest man in the world, who's done untold damage to our world. He's done some good things, but the net effect of that man is untold damage. When he cut aid and poorest people in the world, the Agency for International Development. Imagine the richest man in the world destroying an entity that's giving aid to the poorest people in the world. That man is going to face a tough time at St Peter when he meets St Peter in the pearly gates.
- [19:04]
Jamie Rubin
Spoken like a true Jew, soon to be Christian. So Marta on Instagram asks, why is the world shifting away from democratic governance and towards authoritarian approaches? So I'm gonna answer that, you know, sort of a follow up from what you just said, because John McCain, Republican senator, as you mentioned, said what he did back then, but after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, former President George W. Bush, in his, you know, in his message afterwards, paying tribute to Kirk and his family, then he said, you know, we mustn't treat our political opponents as enemies, as mortal enemies. They must just be political opponents. We mistreat each other like human beings. And he also said, may God. And I think I've said this before because I found it very profound. May God lead America towards civility. So that's one of the reasons why I think, you know, democratic governance is maybe on shaky grounds more than we'd like it to be, because there's none of this, you know, civility. Everything, everything we're fighting from within, including from.
- [20:06]
Christiane Amanpour
I have a good way to. For. Since this was the last question, you'll get a kick out of this. So remember, one of our great vacations together was to the country of Costa Rica.
- [20:15]
Jamie Rubin
I do remember.
- [20:16]
Christiane Amanpour
And it was a terrific vacation. I think we were moving back to America from London. And in Costa Rica, there's two unique qualities to the country. One is they don't have an army, they have police. But the other thing we were told then is that when you're graduating the equivalent of high school, you have to get a certificate or pass a test in civility, not civics, not the way government works, but civility, how to be civil to one another. And it's probably one of the reasons why the people in Costa Rica are uniquely civil to each other and makes it a wonderful country. And so let's. So let's promote the idea of civility. Promote the idea of Costa Rica promoting civility and civilly disagree with each other. If we disagree.
- [21:05]
Jamie Rubin
Indeed. On that note, Jamie, we've wrapped up on a very up note. That's good. So thanks everybody for listening to the Q and A episode of the X Files with me, Christiane Amanpour and Jamie Rubin.
- [21:18]
Christiane Amanpour
Goodbye from New York.
- [21:20]
Jamie Rubin
And remember, of course, haven't finished the housekeeping. If you do have a question, just send it in by any method, whatever you want to know. You can find us on all major social media platforms. Our handle is at amanpool pod email@amanpourpodlobal.com Our next episode is out on Tuesday. Wherever you get your podcast, remember you can listen for free on Global Player. You can download it from the App Store or go to globalplayer.com or you can watch our main episodes and our Q and A episodes now on YouTube. Just search Christiane Amanpour presents and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Thank you and goodbye from New York.
- [21:54]
Christiane Amanpour
Goodbye from New York again.
- [22:03]
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- [23:06]
Christiane Amanpour
This is a global Player original podcast.