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- [00:01]
Podcast Host
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with a name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it@progressive.com, progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states. A KFC tale in the pursuit of Flavor the greatest insult the colonel ever suffered was being served a wrap that was just a snack by a friend. So he took two crispy tenders, lettuce, tomatoes and pepper mayo and wrapped them in a soft tortilla. It wasn't a snack, it was a meal. He called it a twister and never called that friend again. The Colonel lived so we could chicken the twister. Now back at KFC Classic or with bacon. Also try it spicy. It's finger licking good. Prices and participation may vary.
- [00:56]
Guest Host / Interviewer
Today I'm joined by journalist Taylor Lorenz. Taylor, there is some really disturbing story reporting coming out of the paper formerly known as the Washington Post. Kylie, pop this up. Exclusive. Pro Trump activists are circulating a draft executive order alleging Chinese interference in the 2020 election proposing a national emergency to surprise, surprise, expand presidential power over voting. Like banning mail ballots and voting machines. And then there's another headline here that J.B. pritzker popped up. Trump seeking executive power over elections is urged to declare emergency. Activists say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a draft executive order that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting. It's been a while since I have had my civics class, Taylor, but it's my understanding that the Constitution exclusively says that voting is up to the states.
- [02:05]
Taylor Lorenz
Yeah, absolutely. I think this is just, I mean it's wild because they're just doing it all out so in the open now. And it's also just revealing like it's really mad libs with them. It's like China voting, you know? You know what I mean? When has China interfered directly in our voting system? This was not even an allegation that they were trying to make until recently. It's just absurd.
- [02:27]
Guest Host / Interviewer
I also think you have the Nicholas Maduro who Donald Trump the government got and now they want him to say that 2020 was meddled with and I guarantee you the fixes and he's going to give Nicholas Maduro a pardon. And so like you said, they telegraph exactly what they're going to do, especially loose lips, dementia ridden kinks. He's always giving, showing his hands, right. So the people that fund him, when we look at these oligarchs Jeff Bezos is $45 million richer. Then you get to Elon Musk billions of billions of billions of dollars richer. And then you get to Palantir. You have that cokehead Alex Karp, who's just a complete psychopath, and then Peter Thiel. And these people in this company are really diabolical. And this is where your reporting really takes over. So please enlighten my viewers and listeners as to how dangerous companies like Palantir are and their surveillance plans for private citizens.
- [03:31]
Taylor Lorenz
Yeah, well, I think a lot of people are familiar with Palantir now and the massive data harvesting, the way that they are completely intertwined as well with like weapons manufacturing, etc. But Peter Thiel's goal has always been a lot bigger than just Palantir. I think Palantir is a company that everybody knows, but I think as Palantir expands its surveillance now we also have to look at some of the other companies that Peter Thiel is funding. For instance, this company, Persona, which has suddenly become overnight one of the primary identity age verification tools that major social platforms and gaming platforms like Discord and Roblox are, are using now to verify identity. This is also a Peter Thiel company. He's got his hands in all of these different surveillance efforts across the country, and he wants to build this massive AI powered digital dragnet that can be used and abused by the government.
- [04:20]
Guest Host / Interviewer
Okay, so age verification, what I'm getting from here, you, from here, I have kids. And so as a parent, you think age verification, that sounds, sounds good. But are you suggesting that these companies are using our goodwill, that we want children to be safe online and actually weaponizing children to erode privacy? Is that the allegation?
- [04:42]
Taylor Lorenz
Yeah, absolutely. That's actually what we're seeing directly happen. And if you don't believe me, you can listen to groups like the Digital Childhood alliance, which sounds like a great family friendly group. They post all day on Instagram about cracking down on big tech. Well, who funds the Digital Childhood Alliance? It came out in a Desert News article recently that Meta funds them. You know, this idea of age verification, again, as you mentioned, it sounds good. We all want kids to be safe online. It is so hard to grab a phone out of a child's hand these days. But it is essentially, you know, in order to do age verification, you have to remove anonymity from the Internet because you got to know who people are to know how old they are. And that's when the danger comes. Especially because the Trump administration's explicit goal is to Remove anonymity from the Internet.
- [05:29]
Guest Host / Interviewer
So let me ask you this as a person who gets death threats a lot online. I do, because Fox News will be like this crazy white liberal woman. You know, they're terrible. And so then I just get threats of sexual violence and death threats. So much so that I had to turn off my DMs. I'd untag all of my like friends and family members because they get, it's, it's really dangerous. And when I see these like nameless, faceless accounts that do that and of course report them and then of course they would just, you know, delete that account and then do it again. The anonymity as it pertains to me and my safety, that anybody can just create an account and then death threat and sexually harass and threats of sexual violence. It seems to me like maybe we shouldn't have anonymity on the Internet. So explain to me why I'm right or wrong in that.
- [06:22]
Taylor Lorenz
So we actually have a ton of really good data and studies showing that removing anonymity doesn't make people nicer. Believe it or not, one would think you would think that like these people wouldn't say this stuff with their government names. I invite anybody who believes that to spend a little time in the Facebook comment section. People will say the most vile stuff with like full on profile pictures of them holding their kids.
- [06:44]
Guest Host / Interviewer
You're right.
- [06:45]
Taylor Lorenz
It's actually bad actors are bad actors. Now listen, if they're threatening you, if they're doing things that are legally actionable, you should be empowered to take legal action. And I'm all for making it, you know, know, you know, empowering people to be able to do that. Because the reality is, is that these people are not protected by, you know, just because they might not violate like Meta's guidelines doesn't mean that they're not doing something legally wrong in a, you know, that you could prove in court. So I do that. I mean, I've dealt with a stalker. I deal with all this stuff too. But we need to look at the bigger picture here and we need to think a little bit outside of like what is common sense. Because that's what they're preying on, right? They're preying on us just being like, well, that sounds good. Right?
- [07:20]
Guest Host / Interviewer
Right.
- [07:21]
Taylor Lorenz
And that's always kind of the most insidious thing. A lot of people require anonymity on the Internet. Journalists require it to do our jobs, activists, dissidents. And right now there's a great New York Times story that just came out earlier this week. Horrifying that the Department of Trump's. Trump's Department of Homeland Security is currently seeking to unmask hundreds of accounts across America that have criticized ice. Anybody that is starting an anonymous account and criticizing ICE is, is what they're seeking to unmask. And so these identity age verification efforts make all of that easier. The government doesn't have to go through all this hassle. They know who you are. And while it's nice to think that these laws against, you know, hate speech or bullying or whatever would be used to protect women like us, they're not. They're being used under the Trump administration to protect ICE agents. So, listen, if we had, you know, Democrats that are progressive and have an amazing view of everything, maybe, you know, in the future we could talk about sort of reforming some of these laws in certain ways. But ultimately, we want to protect free speech and anonymity for journalists, for activists, for dissidents, for all the people that rely on it most. And it's, again, it's not going to make it a nicer web, unfortunately.
- [08:28]
Guest Host / Interviewer
So I often can go to a. When I don't understand something completely, I can look at, well, who supports this? And you sent to Kylie and me before we started, the Heritage foundation supports all of this stuff. So put up this tweet. Florence Ashley tweets. The Heritage foundation openly states that they'll use bills purporting to protect kids to instead attack, attack trans content, saying it's posing a risk of social contagion. This is super concerning, especially given that the bills have bipartisan support. We need to speak up. And the Heritage foundation says, yes, we do. And so, you know, when the Heritage foundation, which recently put out Project 2026, which is basically taking women back to the 1800s, it. It's so disturbing that you have. The Christian nationalists are now bedfellows with the oligarchs. And as a person that sometimes doesn't dive into the minutiae of all of this as you do as an investigative journalist, I can look at the people that are supporting it. And I know the Heritage foundation is incredibly bad actor, and I know that these oligarchs are bad actors. I know Trump doesn't give a shit. I mean, he has, you know, participation trophy award ceremonies all the time. That's like in his ballroom, you know, that's it. I heard he's meeting with mom Donnie again. His crush, of course. Yeah, of course he wants to meet up with him again. But as you move along, you see that Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook is suppressing messaging regarding DHS and ice, abortion and lgbtq. So they are censoring free speech. These free speech absolutists are censoring free speech. Please tell my listeners about this.
- [10:20]
Taylor Lorenz
Yeah, I mean, I think what listeners need to remember is that these big tech platforms, they don't make money from free speech, they don't make money from free expression. What they make money from is harvesting data and then using that data to sell ads. What allows them to harvest even more data? Age and identity verification. Suddenly they're able to actually collect highly sensitive biometric data on children. Just yesterday, Trump's FTC said that they are going to stop COPPA enforcement, AKA this Child Online Protection act that prevents children's data from being harvested. They're not going to enforce that as strictly anymore so that they can incentivize age verification. They're just giving it away. This is harmful. And if you, if you think that these social media apps are addicting now and you think that these algorithms are targeting you, they're doing that through harvesting data. Just wait until they can harvest 10 times more data and the horrible things they'll do with it. This is why these companies are excitedly pre complying with these laws. We need to take back control and we need to take back control. We need to center privacy, we need to protect activists, we need to fight back against this Trump administration led and Heritage foundation led agenda. You know, you mentioned the Christian fundamentalists. They have been trying to enact these policies since the 90s. They've been loud about it. In addition to the Heritage foundation, the other big group that's been involved in this is Encos, aka Morality and Media. They changed their name in 2015. But these people do not, you know, care about protecting our rights to talk about abortion, LGBTQ content, women's rights, et cetera. They want to send us, as you said, back to the 1800s and disturbs me most. Are all the Democrats getting on board with it.
- [12:00]
Guest Host / Interviewer
Okay, a couple of, a couple of points here. Before we get to the Democrats, I just want to make sure my listeners really understand this because my kids are now in college, but it was just a couple years ago that they're, you know, online on Snapchat, on video games, you know, Twitch, all of the stuff. I mean, kids are just very, and I have two sons, very, very techy. So it's important that we understand as parents that when your child is doing this age verification as a par, you think, oh, this is good, they are verifying my child's identity and their age so that they can monitor that they're safe online. It is a hoodwink. They are mining your child's information, their name and their birth date that forever. They can make these devices more and more personally addictive based on their online usage. This is super important because as a parent, you think, oh good, the companies are taking care of my cuff. But actually your cub is giving them information that is going to make them a million times more vulnerable and a million times more addicted to these devices than they already are. So I think this is incredibly important. Let's move to the Democrats.
- [13:16]
Taylor Lorenz
Wait, before we do that, can I add one more point to that?
- [13:18]
Guest Host / Interviewer
Please do, please do.
- [13:19]
Taylor Lorenz
In, in this effort to de anonymize the web, it's also tracking everything that your child is doing online. So YouTube and meta and stuff are, they're now monitoring a lot more of user activity and again tying that to real ident. So say, you know, there's been so much amazing student activism against ice. Say your child throughout their teenage years is getting increased in activism, watching YouTube videos about, you know, from progressive people like us. Right, right. And you know, maybe they attend a protest when they turn 18 and they step off a curb. Okay, that in itself is not enough to really prosecute them as a terrorist or something. But you take that and you couple this with this now 10 years of Internet history where, you know, everything that they've said on discord, every group that they're in, everything that they've consumed and watch now you have a real case of like, look at this radical getting increasingly radicalized and now they're stepping off the curb to commit violence. We see, we know that this is what happens because we see this is exactly how the Internet functions in authoritarian regimes. This is what happens and we're seeing it happen in real time now. So protect your children. You, your child deserves the right to learn and grow and consume information that privately that's not going to follow them around for life. Not just through corporate, you know, them also having to pay, you know, higher insurance premiums when they're 30 because they looked at the wrong thing when they were a teenager, but also protect them from the government.
- [14:40]
Guest Host / Interviewer
And on the flip side to that, let's say that, you know, the lonely boy gets red pilled and he's on the Tate brothers stuff and some really horrible stuff. And we have to let our kids have the space to find themselves and make mistakes. And that's something that's handled privately in a family. We certainly don't want the Peter Thiel's, the Elon Musk's, the Mark Zuckerbergs, and all of the unhinged, insatiable billionaires mining their information forever and defining maybe a six month. I mean, you know, I've been down a bender on something before, and I'm like, I'm so into this online. And then you're like, God, that was stupid. I can't believe I spent my time on that. Well, teenagers, that's. That's a part of growing and knowing. Okay, let's move on to the Democrats. For me, Taylor, there are two different types of Democrats right now. There are the Democrats that I was 15, 16 months ago, where I was a good MSNBC Democrat and I had a steady diet of corporate media. And then there is the Democrat that I am now that I see the complete difference and I see the error of my ways in not branching out more to independent media, not understanding how a person like Hakeem Jeffers or Jeffries or Chuck Schumer are compromised because they take money from Palantir and they take money from aipac. So there are some good Democrats who are fighting the good fight against corporations. But I think what you want to talk about right now are the corporate Dems.
- [16:13]
Taylor Lorenz
Yeah, exactly. I mean, I want the Democrats to be better. Like, I hate to, you know. Oh, you hate on the Democrats all the time. Listen, no one is equating them to what the fascists in the White House are doing or whatever, but these Democrats, such as Gavin Newsom especially, and I say that because he just has been pushing a lot of this reactionary stuff. He said that, you know, his. He saw his. His daughter, you know, on too much during her birthday party. And so that means that we need to remove anonymity from the Internet and roll out widespread age verification. This is what I'm talking about. You're buying into the Heritage Foundation's plans hook, line and sinker. We need to fight back against that. So there's, you know, there's people in the Senate and the House that I think we need to call out the co sponsors of the Kids Online Safety Act. I know how it sounds. It's not what it does. Guys. This is a bad and dangerous law that is not going to protect children online. But, you know, and we have people. Yeah, lawmakers, Warner Blumenthal. I don't name them all, but. But these are people, as you mentioned, Hakeem Jeffries. It's the establishment Dems that are going along with this. And it's really, really Regressive and dangerous, and it's ultimately pro big tech. That's what's frustrating.
- [17:21]
Guest Host / Interviewer
This is just a really important microcosm of what's happening in a lot of places right now. So you have something that is labeled as, we're going to keep kids safe, but really it's a gift to the tech oligarchs to create a digital profile of your child that will make them inherently more addicted to all of the things they shouldn't be addicted to. And then you have a pack which now is no longer donating under that moniker. Hakeem Jeffries is receiving money through other names and then disseminating it. You have, you know, like the. Just the Republicans in general. We're the. We're the pro family party. Shut up. Shut the up. Y' all are so anti family. You're a party full of deadbeat dads with all these baby mamas and all this going on. Elon Musk, God knows how many petri dish babies he has, by the way,
- [18:14]
Taylor Lorenz
Elon Musk, endorser of the Kids Online Safety act, he. That's all you need to know. Like, do you think Elon Musk cares about protecting? This man endorsed and informed the language of the Kids Online Safety Act.
- [18:24]
Guest Host / Interviewer
That's all you need to know. So this is just listener. This is really important stuff because there's so much that we're getting. Steve Bannon said, flood the zone. These opportunistic oligarchs and billionaires and corporatists are doing everything they can right now under Trump because Trump doesn't give a shit. He wants to decorate his office and build his ballroom because he's intellectually lazy and he doesn't care about the country or the people in it. So all of these far more intelligent, far more ambitious, far more diabolical people than Trump know that he's a useful idiot and they're coming in to grab as much as they can right now. And this is why this episode in this message is so important. Because as a mother of two sons, I would be lazy and I would buy into this. You know, the Kids Online kids safety. I could be like, oh, that's so good. Look at those good Democrats making our kids safe online. People need to know Elon Musk is endorsing this. The guy who fights on Twitter with his baby mom is the guy who showed up to the Oval Office with that kid X and he had a black eye. The dad, Elon Musk, and he was high on ketamine. Is this a person that we want endorsing or having anything to do with online kids safety. So Taylor, thank you so much. Please message me when there are more developments about this because there's, you know, there's all of these juicy headlines and all of this horrible stuff that's going on, but this is the stuff that generationally will make a big difference in kids lives. And I just thank you so much for your journalists journalism and your advocacy for privacy and your advocacy for kids.
- [20:04]
Taylor Lorenz
Well, thank you. Thank you for having me on and I will continue to cover this. There's a big markup next week on some of these bills. So if you see headlines so and so is protecting children online, I promise you they are not. That is not what these laws are about.
- [20:17]
Guest Host / Interviewer
We'll have you back on. We're going to keep monitoring this because I think that this is really important. This is the stuff they're trying to embed that goes under the radar that then 30 years from now is this huge problem like cigarettes originally nobody thought were a big deal and then, you know, it ends up being a really horrible deal. Okay, Taylor, thank you so much.
- [20:36]
Taylor Lorenz
Thanks for having me.
- [20:48]
Podcast Host
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it@progressive.com com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates Price and coverage match limited by state law not available in all states.