The Episode China Doesn’t Want You to Hear

Summary

Offline with Jon Favreau: "The Episode China Doesn’t Want You to Hear"

Release Date: January 19, 2025

Introduction

In the latest episode of Offline with Jon Favreau, host Jon Favreau and co-host Max Fisher delve deep into the controversial Supreme Court decision that upholds the nationwide TikTok ban, exploring its implications on national security, freedom of speech, and the broader landscape of social media influence. The episode, aptly titled "The Episode China Doesn’t Want You to Hear," navigates through the complex interplay between government regulations, tech oligarchs, and the evolving nature of information dissemination in the digital age.

Supreme Court Decision and the TikTok Ban ([04:13])

The episode opens with Jon and Max breaking down the recent unanimous Supreme Court ruling that allows the TikTok ban to proceed across the United States. Jon explains, “[04:13]... the TikTok ban will officially take effect,” highlighting the immediate ramifications for millions of users. They discuss the ambiguity surrounding the enforcement of the ban, noting that while the app might remain accessible initially, restrictions on distribution and updates from U.S. App Stores will gradually render TikTok obsolete in the U.S.

Max adds, “[05:34] Or let someone else open on their phone,” emphasizing the uncertainty users face regarding the app's future accessibility.

Public Reaction to the Ban ([05:50])

As the ban approaches, the hosts examine the emotional turmoil among TikTok users, especially those with significant followings. Jon shares a viral TikTok clip from user SoopyTime, which accuses the government of censorship under the guise of national security: “[06:11] Fascist countries ban apps...”

Max counters by analyzing the tone and content of such videos, pointing out the lack of factual evidence and the emotional rhetoric used to galvanize opposition: “[07:40] The platform, of course, flattens that experience.”

Migration to RedNote: A Misguided Attempt ([23:19])

In response to the TikTok ban, disgruntled users are flocking to RedNote (also known as Xiaohengshu), a Chinese-centric social media app. Jon and Max explore the misconceptions surrounding RedNote, clarifying that it is more akin to an Instagram-Pinterest hybrid focused on e-commerce rather than viral videos. Max remarks, “[23:50] So it's just your standard misinformation,” highlighting the problematic nature of spreading inaccurate information on new platforms.

They discuss the cultural clashes experienced by American users on RedNote, including stringent Chinese censorship that suppresses LGBTQ identities and critical discussions about geopolitical issues. Max summarizes, “[24:50] And before you yell at me, yes, I know that the CIA was involved in Tibet many decades ago. Please don't send me messages about this.”

Donald Trump's Potential Reversal of the TikTok Ban ([36:13])

The conversation shifts to the political maneuvers by President Elect Donald Trump regarding the TikTok ban. Jon reveals that Trump is considering an executive order to suspend the ban temporarily: “[36:13] The Washington Post has reported that President Elect Trump is considering an executive order that would suspend enforcement of the ban for 60 to 90 days.”

Max speculates on Trump's intentions, suggesting that Trump's desire to save TikTok could be influenced by strategic alliances with tech giants like Mark Zuckerberg: “[37:20] [...] he wants Trump to ban TikTok because he will far and away be the number one beneficiary that his Instagram reels is their main competitor.”

Jon critiques this potential alliance as a manifestation of populism undermining institutional integrity: “[37:37] [...] the ultimate triumph of populism and the ultimate failure of our institutions.”

Biden's Farewell Address: The Tech Industrial Complex ([46:11])

The duo analyzes President Biden's farewell address, where he warns against the burgeoning "tech industrial complex." Biden echoes Eisenhower's concerns about the military-industrial complex but shifts focus to the influence of tech oligarchs like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk: “[46:23] Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy.”

Jon underscores the urgency of addressing misinformation, AI threats, and the decline of the free press as outlined by Biden: “[46:54] Joe Biden's farewell address will be on the offline feed as a special episode.”

Silicon Valley's Oligarchy and Cultural Shifts ([54:38])

A significant portion of the episode critiques the transformation within Silicon Valley, particularly the shift of influential figures like Marc Andreessen towards supporting Trump and MAGA ideologies. Jon shares insights from Andreessen's podcast, where he vehemently opposes Democratic regulations and accuses them of undermining the tech industry's potential: “[50:30] [...] he referred to it as the deal where you left us alone.”

Max counters by attributing this shift to deep-seated regulatory frustrations: “[56:30] [...] The Democrats are going to enforce the laws that we increasingly want to make our money by breaking.”

They discuss the internal conflicts within tech companies, using Meta (formerly Facebook) as a case study. Jon expresses concern over Zuckerberg's decisions that prioritize political alliances over employee welfare: “[60:19] [...] Zuckerberg is willing to target his own employees [...] because he thinks it will score him points with MAGA World.”

Impact on Social Media Addiction and Information Quality ([70:31])

Jon and Max reflect on their personal struggles with social media addiction, exacerbated by crisis events like wildfires in Los Angeles. They lament the flood of misinformation and emotionally charged content that undermines meaningful information sharing: “[73:57] [...] it's taken a long time. I think that we are probably on a faster timeline than that, because the guardrails are way ahead of where we were in regulating cigarettes.”

Max elaborates on the psychological aspects of social media addiction, highlighting how algorithms exploit emotional responses to perpetuate misinformation: “[77:20] [...] There's a part of our brain that processes it through emotion and identity that latches onto misinformation because it makes us feel good.”

Conclusion: Navigating the Digital Landscape

In closing, Jon and Max emphasize the collective responsibility to combat misinformation and reform social media's impact on society. They advocate for reducing personal reliance on addictive platforms by physically distancing themselves from their phones: “[83:04] [...] Just putting your phone in another space, you will find that you use it much less.”

Jon shares his own attempts to limit social media usage, recognizing the need for healthier information consumption habits: “[83:08] All right, guys, long show, good show. That's our show for today.”

Notable Quotes

• “[04:13]... the TikTok ban will officially take effect.”
• “[06:11] Fascist countries ban apps...”
• “[23:50] So it's just your standard misinformation.”
• “[36:13] The Washington Post has reported that President Elect Trump is considering an executive order that would suspend enforcement of the ban for 60 to 90 days.”
• “[46:23] Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy.”
• “[54:38] [...] he is a transformation within Silicon Valley...”
• “[56:30] [...] The Democrats are going to enforce the laws that we increasingly want to make our money by breaking.”
• “[70:31] [...] social media is really bad.”

Final Thoughts

Offline with Jon Favreau offers a sobering analysis of the current state of social media, government regulation, and the implications of technological oligarchy on democracy and public discourse. Through insightful discussions and critical examination of recent events, Jon and Max encourage listeners to remain vigilant and proactive in shaping a healthier digital environment.

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Note: This summary excludes advertisements, intros, outros, and non-content sections, focusing solely on the substantive discussions within the episode.

Transcript

[Jon Favreau]

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[Max Fisher]

Yeah, we're old. And listen, I'm younger than you because I'm gay, but it only can do so much. We're gonna get cleanser. You gotta use a peptide like OS1.

[Jon Favreau]

But I don't have to test all 900 because one skin already did.

[Max Fisher]

They already did the work for you. We're going to get you a. A vitamin C serum and a moisturizer and with a sunscreen in it.

[Jon Favreau]

And then we're golden. That sounds like a lot of time. I don't know if I have that much time. You take a part of your ritual. Founded and led by an all woman team of skin longevity scientists, One Skin is redefining the aging process with their proprietary OS1 peptide. The first ingredient proven to help skin look, feel and behave like its younger self. Get 15% off with code offline at OneSkin co. That's 15% off OneSkin co with code offline. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. Invest in the health and longevity of your skin. With One Skin, your future self will thank you. No. You know who's not doing a lot of E commerce on Red Note. The Dalai Lama.

[Max Fisher]

No, but you know what? I would buy some merch. I would buy some rich from the llama. I would subscribe to his Patreon. I would. Me and the CIA, we would sign up for that Patreon. No, I'm kidding. There's a long running TikTok meme that the Dalai Lama is funded by this. He's a CIA op.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, my gosh.

[Max Fisher]

Which goes to show you. How crazy is that? People think TikTok is Chinese propaganda. That's so wacky.

[Jon Favreau]

Very weird.

[Max Fisher]

And before you yell at me, yes, I know that the CIA was involved in Tibet many decades ago. Please don't send me messages about this.

[Jon Favreau]

Definitely send them. I'm Jon Favreau.

[Max Fisher]

I'm Max Fisher.

[Jon Favreau]

So, Max, have you joined RedNote yet?

[Max Fisher]

Well, John, to that I would say zushi wan sui xiaohongzu.

[Jon Favreau]

Which means.

[Max Fisher]

Which means may Red Note live for 10,000 years.

[Jon Favreau]

Welcome back, everyone.

[Max Fisher]

Welcome to Offline, sponsored by the Chinese Communist Party, as we always have been. Sign on to CCP CN Crooked for your discount.

[Jon Favreau]

Don't forget all your data. Don't forget all your data. There is so much to cover this week.

[Max Fisher]

Oh, my God.

[Jon Favreau]

Like, literally just right up until the moment we started recording, there's.

[Max Fisher]

There's news breaking this second.

[Jon Favreau]

So Max and I are going to spend the show combing through it all, including President Biden's parting warning about the tech industrial complex, the growing list of tech oligarchs set to attend Trump's inauguration on Monday, and Max and I are gonna talk about the current state of the Internet and social media as we head into another Trump administration tomorrow. If you're listening to this on Sunday. But first, this morning, Friday, January 17th, when we were recording this, the United States Supreme Court, in a unanimous ruling 9, 0.

[Max Fisher]

You don't see a lot of those.

[Jon Favreau]

Upheld the lower court's decision to allow the nationwide TikTok ban to proceed. That means that on Sunday, January 19, the day this episode airs, the TikTok ban will officially take effect. If you're confused about what this means, so is everyone else. But here's our best idea of what the ban will look like. Theoretically, users should still be able to access TikTok. The law does not require the app to immediately go dark. It just bars US App stores from distributing, maintaining, or updating the app, allowing TikTok to slowly fizzle out. However, people familiar with TikTok's plans told Reuters that as of Wednesday, TikTok planned to shutter its U.S. operations after the ban goes into effect and that users attempting to open the app would see a pop up message directing them to a website with information about the ban. Once again, we're recording this on Friday afternoon. So we do not know what TikTok will have decided to do with the app by the time you're listening to this. But it also seems like the Biden administration, after saying, well, there's nothing we can do about this, the ban's gonna go into effect, is now saying they're not gonna enforce the ban in the, like day between, you know, the ban, Biden leaving and Trump coming in. So we don't know. We don't know. But the best way to see what's become of TikTok on Sunday is to open the app on your phone or don't.

[Max Fisher]

Or let someone else open on their phone.

[Jon Favreau]

On their phone.

[Max Fisher]

Yeah, as long as you don't have any shared content.

[Jon Favreau]

Unless you just want to just give your phone to the. To the Chinese Communist Party, that.

[Max Fisher]

Which we kind of are.

[Jon Favreau]

And maybe everyone else in the world, but we'll see. Let's rewind a little bit and talk about the reaction to the TikTok ban.

[Max Fisher]

Oh, my God, chill. Sure.

[Jon Favreau]

As the ban quickly approached this week, TikTok users, especially those with large followings, very publicly went through all the stages of grief. There was also a conspiratorial undertone about exactly why this ban came to pass. Here's a viral TikTok from a prominent user called SoopyTime.

[Max Fisher]

Fascist countries ban apps. Fascist countries ban websites. Fascist countries ban apps and websites under the guise of threats to national security.

[Jon Favreau]

If TikTok goes dark, the government deliberately.

[Max Fisher]

And knowingly took away your free speech. Do not accept national security for an answer ever.

[Jon Favreau]

It's nice TikTok noise at the end there.

[Max Fisher]

That's the sound of your brain melting.

[Jon Favreau]

Max, how would you respond to TikTokers and constitutional scholars?

[Max Fisher]

Like, so initially I felt a little bit iffy about how much should we really unload on this kind of thing? Because, like, you know, you heard soupy. They're just like a young person in their bedroom. And it's like, is it punching down? We talked about, like, does it feel bad? And then I looked at Soopy Time's page and she has 5.2 million subscribers. That would make her larger than the second largest newspaper in America, twice the size of the Washington Post. And, you know, with great power comes great responsibility. So I think given that, I mean, this video has 12 million views. There are Tons of videos like this that are.

[Jon Favreau]

I should also note that Soupy does not usually discuss politics, news, government.

[Max Fisher]

Sure.

[Jon Favreau]

Like on her. Just so people know. It's not like that. Subi is where you go on TikTok to find out about current events or anything like that. But she felt so strongly about the ban that she decided to say this.

[Max Fisher]

And the platform, of course, flattens that experience. You see this video and many others like it in your feed telling you that the government is doing a fascism and trying to censor your free speech. So that's the message that you're getting. And I think it's fair to interrogate people who have that scale of a platform and say, are they telling you the truth or not? And also, this is just representative of how TikTok works and the kind of news and information that it gives you. You might have noticed there were no facts in that video. There was no evidence provided. There was no, you know, here's what happened. There was no interrogation of like actual reality. It was just kind of like emotion and rage. But I do think that it is worth taking authoritarian governments.

[Jon Favreau]

I don't know about fascists, but authoritarian governments do shut down apps. Yes. The China, for example, doesn't allow TikTok.

[Max Fisher]

Right.

[Jon Favreau]

I know, to operate within China.

[Max Fisher]

A fact that I think would blow a lot of brains, people's brains if they get so. But let's. I think we should take this seriously because I think reasonable people could be coming to this and thinking like, wait, isn't this bad? Why are they shutting down this app and not the other apps? Like, is this national security stuff real? So let's like, there's some like, counterpoints that we can go through. But like, let's ask at a fundamental level, why did they pass this law? Is it to censor speech on TikTok? And I think that there are a few pretty good indicators. The answer to that is is no. Number one, if they were passing this law to try to shut down speech on TikTok, to censor TikTok because they don't like what people are saying, they did a bad job with that. Because the law does not require shutting down TikTok. All it requires is that the Chinese owners divest to a US based owner, which ByteDance, TikTok's owner declined to do. They said, we don't want to do that. Or the Chinese government specifically vetoed that. So TikTok could continue publishing all of this information. They're just choosing not to sell to a US owner, even though they would get 50 to $100 billion for that. Another big data point. It's a flag, right? That's a flag that tells you something. Yeah. Another big data point is that the government did this exact same thing five years ago to Grindr. Grindr, which is, you know, a hookup app, is owned or was owned by a Chinese company, and exact same thing. They passed a law saying you have to divest the US Owners on the exact same grounds, and Grindr did that. Now, was Grindr educating the masses on the evils of US Imperialism? I don't know that it was necessarily so. It's hard to say that they shut down Grindr for that reason. So if it's the same law with the same motivations, I don't know if you can extend that. As you mentioned, China banned TikTok. The sponsors of this legislation, including the Biden administration, have said it's for spying and misinformation concerns. Some of the evidence that they have marshaled for this that is publicly available, which is all, by the way, the Supreme Court considered. They made a big point of saying, we are not going to even look at the evidence that the Biden administration gave us that they sealed for national security reasons. We don't think that should be the basis for this kind of law. TikTok gathers so much of your data off of your phone that if you so much as have an email contact in your life who has TikTok, even if you do not have TikTok yourself, TikTok has all of your data. They have your name, your photo, your phone number. They have your contacts. Chinese law requires TikTok to hand over that information to the government, and you would never know if they did. Chinese law also requires TikTok to do whatever China says they have to do with the algorithm. Now, you might believe reasonable people could conclude that is not sufficient reason to force ByteDance to divest TikTok for national security reasons. But it is pretty clearly their motivation. So I am pretty persuaded that's why they did it and not to censor people's speech.

[Jon Favreau]

TikTok lost almost every single argument it made before the court. Again, this is a court that has agreed nine zero. You got Sam Alito, you got Sotomayor saying, sure, Gatanji, Brown, Jackson and Clarence Thomas on the same page. Here again, it was. I don't think any legislation has passed the last Congress with such overwhelming bipartisan majorities as this has. And I don't know if you noticed, but we're in a time of intense polarization where the parties tend to not agree on much.

[Max Fisher]

Right.

[Jon Favreau]

That they even have agreed on in the past and somehow this got through. Like you said, in addition to not just giving all of your data to the Chinese government, it also. But also any emails or any contacts in your phone that didn't even have TikTok. Right. So now Chinese government, which is an adversary of the United States. I'll use that word.

[Max Fisher]

Yeah, I think they would use that word.

[Jon Favreau]

They would use that word. Now they have what name, phone number, emails for like 170 million plus Americans who are using TikTok plus people in their contacts. A lot of people. TikTok also gathers data that includes the content of their users private messages.

[Max Fisher]

Yep.

[Jon Favreau]

Which a lot of other apps don't do.

[Max Fisher]

Right.

[Jon Favreau]

So again, you, you can look at all that and be like, I don't care. Right. Like, I don't care if Xi Jinping and the CCP have all that stuff.

[Max Fisher]

Right.

[Jon Favreau]

Fine.

[Max Fisher]

Right.

[Jon Favreau]

But the US Government, which is charged with, among other things, protecting national security in the United States, it's certainly something that they, you know, it's in there. It's in their Ballywick. Yeah. Right. That's in their, that's in their purview.

[Max Fisher]

Yes. Right.

[Jon Favreau]

To do something like this. And the way our democratic system works is that, you know, we elect people, they make laws, we have courts, the courts determine laws like that. That's what happened here. No conspiracy. You can disagree with it. Absolutely.

[Max Fisher]

Sure.

[Jon Favreau]

And there are pros and cons to this. Right. We've talked about, I mean, we've talked about it ad nauseam on the show many times. Right. But it's not. There's no conspiracy here.

[Max Fisher]

Well, let me, let's go through a few of the big objections that people raise to this and I think like reasonable objections that people might have because I think they are worth talking through and like, helpful to hear the background on A big one that I think is especially relevant to the data privacy concerns is like, why should I care about TikTok harvesting my data or manipulating me when US owned social media companies are just as bad? Like, doesn't this prove that there's some sort of double standard here when the US Government will go after a foreign owned social media company and not the US owned social media companies? And the answer to that is that they are going after the US owned social media companies very, very aggressively. They are regulating them. It's just that because they are owned by Americans, the legal avenues for that are different. Instead of just passing a law and saying, you have to divest, you have to go through regulatory agencies, you have to go through Congress. That is something that they started on like basically day one of the Biden administration and these huge regulatory cases have been moving their way through the system. You and Lina Khan talked about a really big one coming to fruition against Meta. So if you look at it and saying why, why are they just targeting TikTok? They are not just targeting TikTok but.

[Jon Favreau]

Also I think there is a difference between some tech oligarch billionaire and their company. We're about to say sure. Finding all. Having all your data so that they can feed you ads and sell you more shit. Invasive. Not great. For sure. And I don't know, a foreign adversary having all the data and flying a drone over your house in wartime.

[Max Fisher]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Or knowing like location data for our government officials and our spies and a whole bunch like it's just the reason we have laws about foreign owned companies is for this very reason. And it's not because we are like all nativist and we don't like foreigners. It's not that. It is for governments, not countries, but governments that are adversaries of the United States.

[Max Fisher]

Right.

[Jon Favreau]

Which it's, this is the world. That's what happens. There are governments that are adversaries.

[Max Fisher]

And I think that speaks to another objection that I hear from people which is like, hey, isn't it, isn't it kind of messed up or authoritarian to ban foreign ownership of a company like this? And the answer I always give to that is it's actually extraordinarily common across democracies around the world to regulate foreign ownership of media companies because the media is so important to just the national functioning. We are just less familiar with it as Americans because our media companies are so globally dominant that we rarely have to do it. But like Canada has a ton of laws on the books regulating foreign ownership of their media companies. It's just like a normal thing to do that is done for like non authoritarian reasons all the time. And I think like the big argument against this that you hear from like people like Soupy Time or a lot of people on TikTok or like there was a Slate piece just making this point which is something like people saying something, some version of I learned about things on TikTok that feel really important and meaningful to me and I don't like that the government is taking away. And I don't really care if the reason is good or is not good. I just don't think it's good that the government is taking away my access to that information. And my answer to that is that I know it might feel like if your only news source is social media, that it's giving you raw, real good information, but you are being misinformed. Just full stop, you are being misinformed. You are being manipulated. That is what social media does. That is how social media algorithms are designed to operate. They're designed to manipulate your emotions, they're designed to addict you.

[Jon Favreau]

Also, you're being misinformed about the fact that that's your only choice.

[Max Fisher]

Exactly.

[Jon Favreau]

There are plenty of different outlets around the world that can show you what is going on in Gaza, for example, that are not TikTok.

[Max Fisher]

Gaza is always the one I hear. And it makes me crazy because I hear so many people who I know never read the news say in the last couple of years, I never understood what was happening in Israel, Palestine until I heard about it on TikTok. And I fucking spent 10 years of my life writing about it, trying to get people to care. I know so many people who risked their lives reporting on this conflict trying to get people to care. I am sympathetic that it's. We can't all keep up with everything. And if you learned about it for the first time in a TikTok video, okay, that's good.

[Jon Favreau]

I'm not blaming you, right? I'm following your reporting on this.

[Max Fisher]

But the idea that it only exists.

[Jon Favreau]

On TikTok, we're just telling you it doesn't.

[Max Fisher]

Not only, don't worry, it's not, but all of those videos you saw where it's like, the mainstream media will never tell you this thing about Gaza. I swear to you, the information in that video is ganked, probably word for word from a fucking New York Times story that ran that morning. It is just like it's become a punchline with, like every reporter I know, you pull up any viral video, we all get sent these viral videos and it's like, why don't you and the media, you're such liars and propagandists, you won't tell us this. And it's like, well, that's literally a story we published that some influencer repackaged to addict you to try to sell you, you know, oh, you should only listen to me. Don't listen to the mainstream media. All of which is to say that folks like these big TikTok users who we are talking about, I understand that it might feel to you like this vital source of information is being taken away. It is not. It is an app that is designed to Manipulate and addict you while you're sitting on your sofa with infotainment and endless infinite scroll viral videos. And to feel like it's giving you vital information to keep you scrolling because it gives you a little emotional boost. And if what you care about is being informed, that is amazing. There are so many much better ways to do that.

[Jon Favreau]

And I will say this is all on the consuming news and information on TikTok side of this.

[Max Fisher]

Right.

[Jon Favreau]

I also have a lot of empathy for the creators on TikTok who make a living on TikTok who are thinking, I don't have anything to do with news politics. No propaganda can flow through my TikToks because I'm just doing makeup tutorials or I'm doing, you know, selling, whatever.

[Max Fisher]

Nothing wrong with that, Right?

[Jon Favreau]

And it is tough that those people have built up their own businesses essentially or trying to make a living and then it sort of yanked out from under them. Right?

[Max Fisher]

It was interesting Chuck Schumer made that point on the floor of the Senate.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, yeah. No, I'm sure he knew exactly what he was talking about.

[Max Fisher]

It was kind of funny to hear him talking about our influencers who need to keep their following. Making his case for keeping direct.

[Jon Favreau]

Like someone on the staff. The influencers came in.

[Max Fisher]

Probably not Chuck Schumer.

[Jon Favreau]

The LA was like, hey boss, met with some creators, right?

[Max Fisher]

That's great.

[Jon Favreau]

That's democracy.

[Max Fisher]

And it's to your point that there's a lot of people who do derive their income from this.

[Jon Favreau]

And again, that's why it's a shitty situation and it's not easy. And I think ideally you would want to figure out a way for a lot of those people to make a living on another video sharing app that was not controlled by a foreign government.

[Max Fisher]

Who does not wish us well or bytedance could sell. Right. There's a reason that was the first choice in the legislation.

[Jon Favreau]

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[Max Fisher]

RedNote.

[Jon Favreau]

As of taping, RedNote was the number one app on the Apple App Store. Lots to unpack here. Max, could you explain a little bit about what kind of app RedNote is? Tell us a bit about how TikTok users who join the app have reacted to it. I believe you may have some tweets to share.

[Max Fisher]

Oh I do, I do. So I thought it was funny and telling that all these people migrated to RedNote because they heard on TikTok that RedNote is the Chinese TikTok and that is just not correct. So it's just your standard misinformation.

[Jon Favreau]

More of an Instagram Pinterest.

[Max Fisher]

It is usually described as an Instagram Pinterest combo. It is geared around e commerce more so than viral videos, which is actually like the Chinese app economy is built around e commerce, whereas ours is built around advertising. Kind of an interesting difference. Yeah. It is subject to Chinese online censorship rules because it is an app that exists on the other side of the great firewall. It exists in the Chinese Internet. That means that you know who's not.

[Jon Favreau]

Doing a lot of e Commerce on RedNote? The Dalai Lama.

[Max Fisher]

No, but you know what? I would buy some merch. I would buy some merch from the llama. I would. I would subscribe to his Patreon. I would. Me and the CIA, we would sign up for that Patreon. No, I'm kidding. That's a. There's a long running TikTok meme that the Dalai Lama is funded by this. He's a CIA op.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, my gosh.

[Max Fisher]

Which goes to show you. How crazy is that? People think TikTok is Chinese propaganda. That's so wacky.

[Jon Favreau]

Very weird.

[Max Fisher]

And before you yell at me, yes, I know that the CIA was involved in Tibet many decades ago. Please don't send me messages about this. Definitely send them anyway. So, because it is subject to Chinese censorship rules, the way that censorship works in China is that these companies have private moderators, but they just get rules every day from the Chinese government. And they censor news stories, they censor political commentary, what words you're allowed to use. They pick which hashtags. They will just mute them constantly or block them if they don't like them. They censor a ton of history. It bars anything that the government deems to, quote, disrupt social order or undermine social stability. And a lot of the new RedNote users are learning very quickly that that includes a blanket ban in China on any expression of any LGBTQ identity whatsoever, which is just the tip of the iceberg of the censorship there, but is something you hit up against very quickly. Tellingly, Chinese officials are already ordering RedNote to block Chinese users from seeing any posts by these new US Users.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, yes.

[Max Fisher]

Which again, tells you about China's wonderful commitment to free speech, unlike the American imperialists. Okay. Some tweets, they are on Xiaoheng Xu debunking the Uyghur Muslim concentration camp myth. My God. State Department down 5 million. That has.

[Jon Favreau]

What does the State Department down 5 million mean? I know that I've seen that tweet go around, and I don't understand what that.

[Max Fisher]

So I think the implication is that I saw on the news that China is doing a cultural genocide of the Uyghur minority. Therefore, it must be State Department propaganda. Therefore, I saw a video that says this. Human rights abuse isn't happening while State Department owned. And someone responded, yep, I met a girl here in the States who's from China, and she told me it's all lies. Well, that's good enough for me. Someone posted a thread on RedNote between Chinese and US users. Some of these threads are kind of charming. They're kind of fun. Having cultural contact like this is great and is a wonderful thing. A Chinese user asked American users, why do you get both weekend days off and you don't have to work overtime? And an American user responded, you know, you could consider forming a union and maybe go on strike to protest. Not something you can do in China. No, no, they will kill you. There's. There's one more where American red note users, TikTok refugees asked some Chinese users about this rule that you're not allowed to express LGBTQ identities on any Chinese social app. And someone responded, no discrimination, no encouragement, no publicity. LGBT is an ordinary person. And all the American users responded, and these are the woke Tik tok. Wow. Love this answer. This is how it should be. Best answer ever. See, that's wisdom right there. That was a good answer. Wish this was the norm. Damn. Crystal clear. Exactly what I want to say. So some people are just not very bright, I think, is what's happening here.

[Jon Favreau]

So this is a person on Blue sky who was sort of reporting on all the American TikTok refugees going on Red Note, their interactions with. With the rednote users from China.

[Max Fisher]

Right.

[Jon Favreau]

And I'm just gonna start halfway down to the thread here. Very long thread on Blue sky, it says, and all the Americans are so touched by how kind, welcoming, and generous the RedNote users have been with their time and hospitality. And so Americans started diving into actual RedNote content. Grocery hauls, recipes, day in the life, et cetera. And they're confused because the US government has spent 30 years telling us how horrible China is. But their groceries are cheap. Cheap, high quality, and plentiful. They're eating lobster and crab on a Monday at lunch, not an anniversary dinner. Their jobs provide incredible, varied, healthy lunches and an hour to eat them. Their street style and fashion is impeccable. Their healthcare is provided. Their public transport is cheap, clean, and widely available. One big thing on RedNote is getting recommendations on where to eat breakfast, which can be had for a dollar. Americans are like, omg, we're the poor ones.

[Max Fisher]

So I will say street fashion in Beijing and Shanghai. It's no fucking joke.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, I know.

[Max Fisher]

It's cool.

[Jon Favreau]

No, I know that. I know that.

[Max Fisher]

Yeah, yeah. The Premise of all of this is like, wow, we're undoing American propaganda by finding out that Chinese people are cool. What are you talking about? What? Who said that? Nobody has ever said that.

[Jon Favreau]

Also, do you not think, imagine an authoritarian government is doing bad things and has total control over the government and.

[Max Fisher]

The media and social media apps and the images are positive. It's shocking. Do you think that they would, that.

[Jon Favreau]

They would make sure that the bad stuff doesn't slip through?

[Max Fisher]

I know, I know. That's the whole thing, right? Right. You're not seeing the poverty. And I don't want this to be.

[Jon Favreau]

We have all failed. That's all I'm saying. No, I'm not. That's why I don't want to pick. This is a collective failure in the United States, in the education system, in what other older generations have done and not done for younger generations. The social media apps, everything we've talked about on this show, the government just all across. No one's hands are clean here.

[Max Fisher]

I do keep, I keep seeing videos like this, comments, these posts, and I keep having the reaction, oh, this is just someone who, and I swear I'm not saying this to beat up on people or to be derogative. These are people who have never read a newspaper or a book or a Wikipedia article. Now that has. It has always been true that lots of people don't consume the news. That's, you know, I wish they did, but that doesn't mean they're bad people. But what's happening now is we have this weird information environment where the entertainment app also purports to be a news app. And now if you're on RedNote, it purports to be a like cross cultural encounter app. So the low information people in the United States now think that they are getting news, but it's just this like weird stuff that's bubble wrap for them on their like viral video app.

[Jon Favreau]

And again, like you're, you're completely forgiven. I don't know everything about the Chinese government, Chinese politics, I am not even close to an expert on that. There's plenty of things in history that I should brush up on that I don't know that maybe I learned once. So it's not like. But when you don't know something about history or a foreign government, you should not just go to a social media video sharing app, be it foreign owned or not, for information. And this goes back to the fact that we are just flooded with the take to fact ratio everywhere in our information environment is way fucking Off. And we say this as a take company here, take podcast. Right?

[Max Fisher]

But like takes are part of the media diet.

[Jon Favreau]

Takes a part of the media diet. And that's fine just like every other food group, right. It's good to have your portion of takes. But like there's gotta be facts, places and there's gotta be agreed upon facts and there's gotta be history that we don't rewrite. That is like just what happened, you know, and it's troubling.

[Max Fisher]

It's a good illustration of how social media works to hook you and then misinforms you in the process of like the like Red Note refugee take that is going to go viral is the one that says, hey, if you move from TikTok to Red Note, it means that you were destroying American imperialism and you are actually a brave radical revolutionary who was like breaking the bonds of, of war and conflict in our world. And that's not true, but it's gonna go viral because it feels really good. It's a very emotionally affirming. So you're gonna mass retweet on it.

[Jon Favreau]

The most effective misinformation is not the information is the information that confirms your beliefs. Yes.

[Max Fisher]

Right.

[Jon Favreau]

Even if it's. If it's wrong. Right. Not the misinformation that you're like, wait, that seems false.

[Max Fisher]

Right. And I mean it's something. And I think this is true of the like, they're getting rid of TikTok because they wanna censor our speech. That is something that really ennobles you as a TikTok user. So of course it's gonna be cognitively more attractive to you. So you're gon more primed to believe it. Then it's like, well, they're getting rid of it for these national security reasons that maybe you do or do not agree with.

[Jon Favreau]

We'll be right back. Before we jump to break, some quick housekeeping. As we've mentioned, we set up a disaster relief fund to benefit people impacted by the horrific wildfires here in Los Angeles. Super easy for you to make one donation that's split among incredible charities doing really important work for our neighbors and friends. As of recording Pod Save America on Thursday, we had raised almost $200,000. You have raised almost $200,000. You've donated almost $200,000. The folks at the LA Food bank reached out to someone on our team to say that there's been like 150,000 meals. Basically just based on the donations through the Votes Save America Relief Fund. They're really grateful and happy and they're getting all kinds of donations right now from tons of different people. But it's really helpful. So thank you for all you've done and keep it up. It's votesafeamerica.com release also this week on Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams. Check it out. We mentioned in this episode the Zuckerberg getting rid of dei. Stacey is going to take on DEI programs and what's going on with it. She has NYU Law Professor Kenji Yoshino to tackle the myths, legal arguments, and share why DEI isn't the problem, it's the solution. Tune into this episode now on the Assembly Required Feat Offline is brought to you by Mosh. The older you get, the more you may find yourself wanting to be more intentional about the way you live, eat and take care of your body. Mosh Bars can help you do that. Mosh, which you may have heard about on Shark Tank, was founded by Maria Shriver and her son Patrick Schwarzenegger with a simple mission to create a conversation about brain health through food, education and research. Maria's father suffered from Alzheimer's and since then she and Patrick have dedicated themselves to finding ways to help other families dealing with this debilitating disease. Mosh joined forces with the world's top scientists and functional nutritionists to go beyond beyond your average protein bar with eight delicious flavors including a plant based one in peanut butter and chocolate. Each Mosh bar is made with ingredients that support brain health like Ashwagandha, lion's mane, collagen and omega 3s. And now mosh bars come with a new look and new formulation featuring a game changing brain boosting ingredient you won't find in any other bar. Mosh is now the first and only food brand boosted with Cognizant, a premium nootropic that supplies the brain with a patented form of citicoline. But here's the best part. MASH donates a portion of all proceeds from your order to fund gender based brain health research through the Women's Alzheimer's movement. Why gender based? Two thirds of all Alzheimer patients are women. Mosh is working closely to close the gap between women and men's health research. Marsh bars are great. We've had them in the office. They're delicious. We can't ever keep them in stock when we get them in because everyone loves them. If you want to find ways to give back to others and fuel your body and your brain, Mosh bars are the perfect choice for you. Head to moshlife.com offline to save 20 off plus free shipping on the best sellers trial pack. That's 20% off. Plus free shipping on the Best sellers trial pack at M-O-S-H-L-I-F e.com offline. Thank you, Mosh, for sponsoring this episode. The last thing you want to hear when you need your auto insurance most is a robot with countless irrelevant menu options. Which is why with USAA auto insurance, you'll get great service that is easy and reliable, all at the touch of a button. Get a quote today. Restrictions apply. Now, if you're listening and saying, if you've made it this far and are thinking to yourself, fuck these guys, I want my TikTok. Yeah, here's the good news for you.

[Max Fisher]

Yeah, we do have some good news for you.

[Jon Favreau]

The Washington Post has reported that President Elect Trump is considering an executive order that would suspend enforcement of the ban for 60 to 90 days. That provision is already in the law.

[Max Fisher]

Right.

[Jon Favreau]

That you can. That the government can extend by 60, 90 days if there is a deal in the offing. And so this would buy the administration time to negotiate a sale, repeal the ban, or find an alternative solution. And lo and behold, the TikTok CEO will be sitting behind Trump at the inauguration. And also TikTok is sponsoring a party at Trump's inauguration. Again, just total coincidence. And of course, Trump's incoming national security adviser went on Trump's favorite program, Fox and Friends, again, a program that, you know, gives us defense secretaries and other cabinet members. And he did say there that Trump wants to figure out a deal to save TikTok. Right. How many days do you think until Trump figures this out?

[Max Fisher]

So do you, do you think he's going to. He's gonna save it.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes.

[Max Fisher]

Really? Yes. So I think that's interesting. I wanna hear he's gonna save it.

[Jon Favreau]

And I have a whole. Yeah. This is, to me, the ultimate triumph of populism and the ultimate failure of our institutions. And I will go off on that in a minute, but go ahead.

[Max Fisher]

Okay. That's right. Yeah, I do. What it. So I think that obviously he's sending a lot of signals that he wants to save it, inviting the chief of TikTok to sit at the dais at the inauguration. Mark Zuckerberg is also gonna be at the dais and we're go more about the Zuckerberg stuff. But like one of his big ask to Trump and one of the reasons he. Mark Zuckerberg is going full maga is he really wants Trump to ban TikTok because he will far and away be the number one beneficiary that his Instagram reels is their main competitor. So I think that what he is going to do here, regardless of where he ultimately lands, he wants to draw this out. He wants to put Zuckerberg and the TikTok chief right there and implicitly tell them, by putting them there and by having this big will liar, won't happen. Say, you know, whoever does the most corrupt favors for me, whoever engineers your platform to be the most promaga, whoever throws me, you know, funnels the most money to my hotels, I'm gonna make the decision in your favor. And it's pretty canny to have this kind of corruption bidding war between TikTok and Meta.

[Jon Favreau]

I think from Trump's point of view, the man, he's a simple mind. Donald Trump. Successful one, but a simple one.

[Max Fisher]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

And he likes to do what's popular. And being a China hawk, particularly on economic issues, for him, he's not like, as much of a China military hawk as, like, his new Secretary of State, Marco Rubio and some other people in his administration and many Republicans. But he is a. He's sort of an economic, you know, we're gonna do all the terrorists. Right, Right. But he knows that railing against China and China screwing us over is quite popular politically. He also now knows that the TikTok ban is unpopular, and he knows that he did quite well with young people. And he knows and has been told at least that now TikTok is not just proof that young people like him, but a place for him to get his message out. And the other thing he loves is having places in this information environment to get his message out. He loves a good propaganda machine.

[Max Fisher]

He does seem to have taken the message, TikTok likes Trump. Trump. And if TikTok likes Trump, then Trump likes TikTok.

[Jon Favreau]

And you know who's been telling him that message is, I'm sure Kellyanne Conway, lobbyist for TikTok, also counselor to Donald Trump. And I don't think you have to imagine anything more nefarious than Kellyanne thinking, this is my client. And all I have to do with Trump is be like, they like you. They really like you. And he's like, cool, that's great. So I think what he'll do is either one of the. He can do two things. One, his incoming attorney general, if she's confirmed, Pam Bondi, she could just decline to enforce the ban.

[Max Fisher]

Right.

[Jon Favreau]

Now, that only lasts you through the Trump administration, because then the next ag, which could just enforce the ban or.

[Max Fisher]

The law will still be in the.

[Jon Favreau]

Books or and I believe it was Casey Newton who called this one when the law first passed. Is that Trump could. The law allows for the president to decide what divesting actually means. And yeah, it's like very broad the in the provision in the law.

[Max Fisher]

So it could mean selling one of their offices.

[Jon Favreau]

So the deal could be not what we're thinking. Right. 20 billion, whatever it's worth. It could be like selling some portion of Tick Tock off. And then Trump can say I did it, it's divested. And now Tick Tock goes Trump saved. Tick Tock. Everyone cheer Trump.

[Max Fisher]

Right.

[Jon Favreau]

And then he'll go saber rattle right again to China anyway because he doesn't really care.

[Max Fisher]

And it's a defeat for our institutions because they're the ones who are supposed to be looking out for our goodwill regardless of what's popular. Moment to moment.

[Jon Favreau]

So it's so perfectly encapsulates how bad we everything up in this country.

[Max Fisher]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Which is that like even on this issue where conservative Republicans, liberal Democrats in Congress originally, finally Donald Trump when he was president and his administration, then Joe Biden and his administration, this Supreme Court of all Supreme Courts, the Most political Supreme Court, 9, 0, every institutional center of power say we have to do this. Hey, everyone. We're all coming together to say that we must do this and just doesn't explain it. That's the other failure. Right. Doesn't communicate it in a way that most people will understand. Because. Because our institutions know that they are right, but don't think that they have to explain why they are right.

[Max Fisher]

You don't think they sold it?

[Jon Favreau]

No. Yeah, I don't think they sold it at all.

[Max Fisher]

How much of that do you think.

[Jon Favreau]

Is because we do this for a living.

[Max Fisher]

You know, how much of that do you think is specific to like Joe Biden is maybe not himself. Someone who could say, go on the morning shows.

[Jon Favreau]

I don't think any member of Congress was out there.

[Max Fisher]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

That persuasively. Yeah. On this issue. And I think they all are used to doing, especially people in the national security apparatus are used to doing this whole thing where it's like, trust us, we've seen the intel. We know now. Oftentimes they are right.

[Max Fisher]

Sure.

[Jon Favreau]

But why do they expect people to believe them? And we're in a situation where trust in our institutions is so low and all the people in our institutions can do is be like, no trust us and they're not making their case. And. And so the most sort of base kind of populism which is what we're getting now from people who are misinformed on social media, addicted to these apps is like, hey, sure, this seems conspiratorial that they're taking this away from me. And all you need is a demagogue like Trump to come around and be like, the people are right and I'm with the people. And all these people are like, yeah, Mr. Trump, you did it.

[Max Fisher]

Yeah, I look, I hear all of that is true. I hear all of that. I do think a lot of it just to my mind, does come back to the social media ecosystem. Like, just to think of one example, someone in the Biden administration who I certainly feel has done a lot to sell their policies. Lena Khan in the ftc, she was on the show. She's been doing this huge media tour. She's everywhere, which is, like, unusual for the FTC chair. Not someone who you usually hear from. And I like, you know when we were talking earlier about, like, yes, they are trying to regulate us. Social media companies are doing all these cases. I can't tell you how many people I talk to who are really smart, who read the news, who just don't know about that.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Max Fisher]

Who just don't know that that's happening. And I think a lot of that is because more and more of us. I mean, part of it is because it is dry. The way that that works. It is slow. More and more of us get our news from social media, including me, more than I wish I did. And what it is going to feed you is this kind of like, outrage. Your institutions are failing you. That doesn't mean that they're not. That doesn't mean that there's zero truth to that. But they are going to just feed you evidence for that. And they're not going to show you have any evidence to the counter. Like, the example I always think of is climate. And how many young people think that the two parties are the same on climate and neither of them are doing anything. And they did this, the biggest climate bill in history, and I think they did a lot to try to promote it. Now, I agree in this case, they also did not sell it. But I do think that we can't just put it on that because even times when they have done the work to sell it, people still don't get the message.

[Jon Favreau]

Totally agree. I just think that we haven't tried.

[Max Fisher]

No, in this case, I agree.

[Jon Favreau]

And it goes back to, like, it is unfair that this is the situation in which we find ourselves. It is grossly unfair. And it is not the fault of our institutions, but like we have as people who want to have institutions that work, not just defend institutions, but have institutions that work in a functioning democracy. Like it is on us to figure out creative ways to break through the clutter. Because I don't think that these, the oligarchs aren't doing it.

[Max Fisher]

Yeah, Trump's not doing it. They're sure not. No.

[Jon Favreau]

You know, Lina Khan's out there. She tried her hardest.

[Max Fisher]

Yeah, I know. Your platform is not what you wish it was.

[Jon Favreau]

So it's like we have to just deal with the world as it is and we have to figure out a way to break through that.

[Max Fisher]

I wonder how much of that in this specific case was because they all use TikTok in the election.

[Jon Favreau]

I think it's.

[Max Fisher]

It's probably a big piece of it.

[Jon Favreau]

I think so, yeah. All right, let's move away from tick tock for now.

[Max Fisher]

On Wednesday, as ordered by the Supreme.

[Jon Favreau]

Court, on Wednesday night, President Biden used his farewell address to highlight his concerns for the fate of the nation. Among them, the rise of an oligarchy of the ultra wealthy, which, though unnamed, includes surely tech CEOs Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk, the three richest people in the world, who will be sitting again with the TikTok CEO right behind Trump, along with the members of Congress, the presidents, the ex presidents. They're all going to be there.

[Max Fisher]

Our fifth branch of government.

[Jon Favreau]

Yep. And echoing Eisenhower, President Biden dubbed the rising threats of misinformation AI and the decline of the free press as the, quote, tech industrial complex. Let's listen to a clip.

[Max Fisher]

Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy. The free press is crumbling. Editors are disappearing. Social media is giving up on fact checking.

[Jon Favreau]

The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit.

[Max Fisher]

We must hold the social platforms accountable to protect our children, our families, and our very democracy.

[Jon Favreau]

Joe Biden's farewell address will be on the offline feed as a special episode. So we haven't talked, like, what was your reaction when you, when you heard that? I'm like, wow. Joe Biden leans hard into.

[Max Fisher]

I know.

[Jon Favreau]

Into an offline topic in his farewell address. I was, I was pleasantly surprised.

[Max Fisher]

I listen, I have always thought that, you know, I don't love everything about Joe Biden. I don't love everything he did. But I always thought at his best, he believed in the importance of institutions and understood the severity and the urgency of the threat to the. And I think when he came into office, that was primarily our democratic institutions, our courts, our legislative process, our electoral process. And I am surprised and impressed that someone of his, let's say, advanced age is as acutely aware as he seems to be, based on this speech, of how much that threat has shifted to our information environments. Not just how we get news, but that manipulates our behavior and manipulates how our brains work. And it made me curious who on his staff honestly, is writing this? Which is not to say I don't think he believes it, but clearly he's got some team behind him who is invested in this. And it makes me hopeful that those people are going to continue to be involved in this fight.

[Jon Favreau]

I think they spent a lot of time thinking through AI clearly not in a way that has pleased the AI.

[Max Fisher]

Industry, which is a sign that it's working, a sign that these are pretty good policies.

[Jon Favreau]

I think. Think they might have stumbled into. This is my theory on this. They are very. Biden especially, and. And the people who've been around him the longest, very upset by the press he gets. They think everything is unfair. And I think that they have.

[Max Fisher]

There's a little like TikTok made the kids woke.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Okay.

[Max Fisher]

That sounds great.

[Jon Favreau]

You know, like he made reference to the fact checkers, you know, because he's. He's. Joe Biden's in the world where, you.

[Max Fisher]

Know, facts are all on his side.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Koestler's at the Washington Post and he's given four Pinocchios for something. Half of you don't know what I'm talking about. If so, good for you.

[Max Fisher]

Is he still out there?

[Jon Favreau]

I have no idea. I actually don't know.

[Max Fisher]

He's a. I used to sit next to him. He's a lovely guy, but people.

[Jon Favreau]

People used to, you know, care about fact checks and Joe Biden.

[Max Fisher]

That's true.

[Jon Favreau]

And he's, you know, he's talking. All these interviews about the editors are. He said in the farewell address, the editors are gone. Something we talk about also.

[Max Fisher]

Ye.

[Jon Favreau]

But like the gatekeepers are gone. And I think that. I think it's acute for them because they feel. Look, every White House feels besieged. We feel. We felt besieged in there. You're in a foxhole, of course. But I think they feel particularly so and are a little bitter as they leave. And so I think it has. I think that's one of the reasons. I think that combination.

[Max Fisher]

I believe that.

[Jon Favreau]

I do think Jeff Zients, the White House chief of staff, spent a lot of time thinking about AI and so has the government.

[Max Fisher]

That makes sense. I could see those two things coming together and look wrong. Wrong path to the right destination is still the right destination. I am glad that you brought up the AA policies. Frankly, I had forgotten how much time they spent on that. And the. And again, we're going to talk about this, but the severity of the backlash from Silicon Valley to these rules, I think shows that they were real guardrails that got created in recent history. When's the last time that happened that guardrails weren't just protected, but created?

[Jon Favreau]

Well, this is a perfect. I want to talk about this because. Because you suggested listening to a podcast.

[Max Fisher]

This week, which I do, begrudgingly.

[Jon Favreau]

Barry Weiss's podcast, particularly the episode where she interviews Marc Andreessen.

[Max Fisher]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Who's one of Silicon Valley's most influential investors. He voted for and supported Democrats for a long time and sort of had this, much like, like others in Silicon Valley, this sort of awakening where now he's like a big Trump supporter.

[Max Fisher]

Yep.

[Jon Favreau]

And Barry Weiss sits down with him and asks him about all this. I listened to the whole thing.

[Max Fisher]

Oh, you did?

[Jon Favreau]

Yes, I did.

[Max Fisher]

Oh. I only listen to clips of it.

[Jon Favreau]

Wow.

[Max Fisher]

I know, I know. Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

First of all, it's going to feel weird to say Barry Weiss does a good job interviewing. Don't you?

[Max Fisher]

Okay.

[Jon Favreau]

She does a. She does a very, like. I know. I'm very familiar with Barry Weiss.

[Max Fisher]

Sure. Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, yeah.

[Max Fisher]

Right. Like, I get it.

[Jon Favreau]

But she does. He lays out.

[Max Fisher]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

This view. I know of Washington and the Democratic Party and politics that it's odd because, like, I don't. I, I found myself not disagreeing with a lot of what he said.

[Max Fisher]

Really.

[Jon Favreau]

I found myself disagreeing with the reality he constructed. I was like, what you are saying would be crazy if it were true. Right. But I think, I think he has confused. And I'm now concerned that Zuckerberg and all the rest of them have confused the rantings and ravings of some folks on the left or in the resistance or whatever else on social media with like how Democratic politicians, policymakers, other people think. And it's. I think it's back to social media. Like, I think it's now definitely some.

[Max Fisher]

Social media, some schism. Yeah, yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

It's like just what. But the way the Andreessen was talking about is like that the Biden administration was the most anti tech administration in, in history ever. That with AI, they basically said, they brought them all into the White House and said, we are going to have we're going to be a couple big AI companies. The government's going to fully control them. There's going to be no startups allowed. It's going to be just like during the Cold War with the develop. With the Manhattan Project, literally compared to Manhattan Project and like, people not being able to, like, do nuclear weapons startups and. And they just want full control over it. And because they have full control over it, then they're going to make it woke and they're going to, like, start erasing history and all the thought police shit's going to happen and blah, blah, blah. And then also they hate tech because he has staffers and his administration that just, they just hate capitalism and they hate rich people. And they say it all, they say it openly that they hate capitalism and hate rich people and hate people making money. And I'm just like, what is going on here?

[Max Fisher]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

And it's weird too, because he was like. And it's so different than the people in the Obama administration and blah, blah, blah, and the Clinton administration. And I'm like, I, like I was in the Obama administration. I don't, I don't look at the Biden administration and think that they're that much different.

[Max Fisher]

So let me. Yes, I agree with all that. Let me sum up, like, what he said, because this has been presented both by him and kind of like by his cohort as his big manifesto for why his segment of the tech industry. Industry embrace Trump. And like Mark Andreessen, it's like, he's not a guy we've talked about a lot. I think he will probably come up a lot this year. He's a very powerful guy in Silicon Valley. He's one of the money guys, very influential.

[Jon Favreau]

Made a ton of money.

[Max Fisher]

Made a ton of money on Netscape. His real role has been as a venture capitalist, where he funds a bunch of startups. This is why he's so concerned about are they going to allow startups in AI. He's fucking bad news. He and his partner at Andreessen Horowitz's VC firm, I write about them a bunch in the book. They've really presage a lot of the turn towards bad stuff in Silicon Valley. We'll get into that later. So his big manifesto had, like, two big pillars to it for why they turned right. One of which I think is, like, not the real reason. And the other one, which I think is the one that is, I think, not the real reason is like cultural grievances. He refers to it as the deal we Used to have the deal where we. You left us alone. We invented cool, amazing stuff. And then, by the way, we donated all of those profits to philanthropy because we're amazing guys. And then you left us alone. And you also celebrated us culturally. And now you yell at us. And I got called bad names on the Internet and you called me think.

[Jon Favreau]

That Max is just like, exaggerating.

[Max Fisher]

No, this is.

[Jon Favreau]

Listen to him talking about race. He basically lays this out to her.

[Max Fisher]

This is not. I will express my views on what he is saying, but this is what he is saying. He said that Dem. The Democrats blame Silicon Valley for letting Russian hackers engineer Trump's election. That never happened.

[Jon Favreau]

In fact, at some point he's like, they think, think that. They think that there's no way Trump could have won were it not for Putin and Russia. That's not true.

[Max Fisher]

No one has ever said that.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, Random resistance person on Twitter. Right, right, with the, with the Ukrainian flag in the bio. Yeah, maybe, maybe. But like not. Not a lot of real people.

[Max Fisher]

He also claimed on Ross.

[Jon Favreau]

Not a lot of, Not a lot of powerful people.

[Max Fisher]

Yeah, no, I agree. He claimed on Ross Douthat's podcast, quote, the federal government radicalized hard under Hillary Clinton. Clinton and Ross Douthit said, wait, don't you mean Donald Trump? And he said, no, Hillary Clinton was in charge of the federal government while Donald Trump was president. So it's just wackadoo shit. So I think all of this culture war grievance stuff used to celebrate us and now you're mean to us. So we had no choice but to turn fascist. I think that's just like, he's saying that because it feels good to blame his critics and being like, actually, you're the ones who are humiliated now. I think the real reason in is it's 100% regulatory. The Democrats tried to regulate us. And I don't think it's actually so much a change in the attitude from Democrats or the White House. I think it's a change in Silicon Valley where the Silicon Valley business model over the last few years, not for all of it, but for the segment that Marc Andreessen represents, is increasingly built on illegality. It's built on anti competitive behavior, buying up your competitors, monopolistic behavior, illegally mining user data, child user data, especially crypto, which is an illegal, unregulated security that Mark Andreessen is very effective at manipulating the market for. For money.

[Jon Favreau]

I also learned about this. They're very upset about this. They think debanking, right?

[Max Fisher]

Which is, which is Totally made up. Marc Andreessen made up. It's straight up disinformation that I'm like, started.

[Jon Favreau]

You listen to it and you're like, what is he talking about?

[Max Fisher]

It's not a real thing.

[Jon Favreau]

They're telling in his telling.

[Max Fisher]

Right.

[Jon Favreau]

The Biden administration has gone around to people who are supportive of crypto and some other people that they don't like. I guess people in the. He said that some people in the first Trump administration say this happened to them and just debanked them, which is meaning that, like, you can't open a bank account. You have to have all your money in cash because the government says that the banks won't let you even have an account. You can't do banking anymore, and it ruins your life. I'm like, that sounds pretty scary. Maybe it is. I don't know.

[Max Fisher]

It is so much not happening that Marc Andreessen himself specifically later acknowledged, oops, I got that wrong. That is not a thing that is happening.

[Jon Favreau]

He said it again on Barry Royce's podcast. The whole thing on the debanking.

[Max Fisher]

Did he really?

[Jon Favreau]

He wants investigations. When Trump gets into power, It's.

[Max Fisher]

It's a. It's 100% a thing that they made up. And the reason that they made it up, of course, is to turn. It's the same thing with all of this, like, Zuckerberg stuff. Turn the regulators into the villains in the eyes of MAGA culture war. So that when the regulators say, hey, these tech companies are exploiting people, they're hurting people, they're taking your money through these illegal crypto gambling schemes, they can say, well, whoa, more regulator woke culture war. They're trying to silence your free speech and try to get the MAGA cause to shut that down. So I think it is literally just comes down to all the culture war stuff I think is smokescreen and noise. It comes down to the Democrats are going to enforce the laws that we increasingly want to make our money by breaking. And Trump is saying he won't enforce those laws if we bribe him, which we are more than happy to do.

[Jon Favreau]

I thought. Another riff he went on in the podcast that was probably the most chilling to me and also explains a lot, is he at one point says, he goes, look, there is no such thing as democracy. It's oligarchy. They're all oligarchies.

[Max Fisher]

Jesus.

[Jon Favreau]

And he said, I didn't hear this throughout history. Yeah. And he was like, what it really is, is every society, even the ones that call themselves democracy and call themselves representative democracy is governed by an elite. And that elite is an oligarchy. And really every change of government and everything else is just one group of elites swapped out for another group of elites.

[Max Fisher]

I know exactly where he's going getting this.

[Jon Favreau]

And this is. And he's like, and now the United States for the last however many years now has been governed by this liberal cultural elite. These are the people that broke the deal for him. And now they're all woke and thought police and they cannot be trusted to usher in artificial intelligence because there's so much. There's danger if they use their thought police cancellation shit on that. And what he's got a whole thing, but it really is. And, and the elite that's come in here, he believes that because he and others in Silicon Valley build new things and innovate, they should be in charge. They do good things, they should be in charge. And everyone else who's in charge are just like government bureaucrats and people who are political and community. And they don't have real talent. The real talent is the building of the technology, and those are the people who should be in charge.

[Max Fisher]

It's a very specific worldview that starts with Peter Thiel, who is another big tech investor, Silicon Valley guy who got Mark Zuckerberg his start at Facebook. The first big investment to Facebook that it just like it traces back to the specific series of podcasts about, like Roman history, which is how they get to this idea that elite should rule. It's this like, very specific media ecosystem. I'm sure that we will talk about it at some point. One other, I think, like, really important data point for understanding the segment of the tech world that has embraced maga ism is. I know you guys talked on PSA about the Zuckerberg, like MAGA stuff, like going on Rogan. You guys said all of it. All the big, like, moderation policy changes that are meant to appease Trump and all like going on Rogan and talk about masculinity. One piece of that that I think is actually really telling for understanding where we are going with this is specifically the way that he magnified his own own workplace and not like getting rid of dei, no more diversity in hiring, workplace protections. And something that really jumped out to me specifically is he's made a big point of saying we took the tampons out of what Meta refers to as their men's rooms, which is just these policies are designed and the fact that they are broadcast them are designed to deliberately hurt Meta's own employees as a way to demonstrate allegiance to to the MAGA culture war. And the reason that I want to highlight this, Zuckerberg is willing to target his own employees. The people who build his products, who we need to make his companies profitable, the people he passes in the hallway and is hurting them because he thinks it will score him points with MAGA World. So what do you think he's going to do to the billions of people who use his products?

[Jon Favreau]

And then when asked about it and asked about his history as someone who okayed that. Yeah, he blamed it on Sheryl Sandberg.

[Max Fisher]

Incredible. Absolutely incredible. Yeah. His longtime number two who left a couple years ago and is now blamed.

[Jon Favreau]

It all on Cheryl. Yeah. Right under the bus.

[Max Fisher]

I know. He, look, it's not like Mark has any power at Facebook. He's just the little guy. He's just Sheryl Sandberg's intern. And he was saying, I don't know about all this, when Sheryl Sandberg was doing all this stuff.

[Jon Favreau]

I think, I mean, do you think that the, like, the workforce is going to do anything here in Silicon Valley? Because, I mean, and Andreessen says this too. He's like, look, as much as we feel like we've won here, it's still 9010, you know, donations to Democrats, the workforce.

[Max Fisher]

And that's true.

[Jon Favreau]

Yes, And I think that is true. And I wonder what happens with a lot of these employees, because I, I, There's a lot of people at Meta, people I know Meta, who are like, fuck this.

[Max Fisher]

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I've been talking to people who have been talking about, like, they're outraged. They log on to their, like, workplace discussion platform, and it's just like, like a waterfall of outraged comments, which, of course, Meta is just systematically deleting because they believe in free speech so much that you're not allowed to criticize your own employer just like this privately. Honestly, they have a couple things in common. Yeah. I mean, look, it is important to remember that Andreessen Zuckerberg, they don't represent the bulk of Silicon Valley. Most people there are liberal. They are Democratic. The workers there have shown the power previously to influence their company's behavior. Like the last big time, this happened. Maybe one of the only big Times was in 2020 when Zuckerberg was passing all these policies that were very. Not passing, implementing all these policies that were very favorable to Trump and basically saying it's fine if Trump wants to tell the police to shoot protesters en masse. And a bunch of the employees, like, really made a big stink about that internally. Some of them quit and made A big show about that and were like talking about things the company did, which is not cheap because it means giving up this huge payout that they give people when they leave to sign an NDA. And it really did push them in a better direction in the next few months over the course of the 2020 election. So I hope that it happens. It's very hard for Silicon Valley workers to come together because there are so many of them, they're very spread out, they don't have like a union or any other kind of like mechanism for them to collectively coordinate to pressure their employer, which is why the threshold is so high for it. But it is a thing that can happen. And I do hope that the folks who are listening to this in Silicon Valley, I mean, first of all know that like, I understand that you don't go along with this and you don't agree with this and like, I hope that you remember that you have some power here.

[Jon Favreau]

And I also hope that the, the people in Silicon Valley who do have a lot of power and who other founders, other VCs, other tech people who like could speak up, who are leaders in the tech industry who don't agree with this because I think those people, people could make a real difference too.

[Max Fisher]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Because they, they are herd, they have big platforms and they in theory should not be as cowed because they're, you know, wealthy.

[Max Fisher]

Although if you're launching, it's hard because if you ever want to launch a startup, you need money from the venture capitalists, the funding guys that those are the most pro maga guys.

[Jon Favreau]

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[Max Fisher]

USA.

[Jon Favreau]

All right, let's talk about where we go from here. As a couple of social media addicts facing down another four years of Trump and his new alliance with all of these men who built these platforms, I will say that I've given some serious thought over the last couple weeks, especially as to whether whether social media, all social media, not just Twitter as we always talk about, is useful or beneficial enough any longer to justify staying on it anymore. And useful enough to me, to my job. And I don't know, I think to me as like an LA resident too, I think the response to the fires on social media that really, that sort of did it for me, I think.

[Max Fisher]

It woke a lot of people up to like social media is really bad.

[Jon Favreau]

It's really bad. It was bad during, it's bad in the aftermath. And when I say bad, yes, it's misinformation. It's also just like the ang. Like when a crisis happens, what do you need? You need people to be able to get good information, to be able to respond collectively to help each other out. And look, I should say that you look on Instagram and you find out about places to donate places to volunteer people who are helping people. So there is value There, Right. Yeah.

[Max Fisher]

There's always been some.

[Jon Favreau]

We've talked about the Watch Duty app. Right.

[Max Fisher]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Which tells. Has been telling LA residents where the fires are evacuation, like, better than the government has. And so, like, all of that stuff's useful. But I think that the fact that we have this. The way that we communicate now is on these platforms where in moments of crisis or when a disaster strikes, the first thing we get now is anger, fear, rage, bait, misinformation, smugness, smugness, performative weirdness. And also there's just like a. There's something about. You're in this crisis, you see a post where someone just lost their home. And then you see a post of like, someone in Barbados smiling on vacation.

[Max Fisher]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

And then you see. Then you get an ad for something. Just ridiculous.

[Max Fisher]

Sure.

[Jon Favreau]

And then you have a piece of misinformation and then there's a sports score. It's just like this.

[Max Fisher]

The.

[Jon Favreau]

The way that information comes at us now, when you are part of the crisis or disaster and you're seeing sort of the rest of the world, it.

[Max Fisher]

Forces you to confront how useless it is and counterproductive. The thing that kept getting me is I kept, like, when we were thinking about evacuate or like, planning on evacuating, I kept pulling up my phone, hoping to get the Twitter of 10 years ago, which would show me, you know, which highways are safe to evacuate through. Like, is the 10 on fire? Is the 5 safe? Is it crowded? Is it, like, what's the safe way out? Like, where are the fires? And what I instead saw was some combination of, like, misinformation or a lot of people, like, sneeringly explaining how if the government weren't so fucking stupid, it would be so easy to put out the fires, because they know how to put out the fires. And like, obviously Karen Bass would do X, Y and Z if she weren't so corrupt. And then the fires would be out like that. And it's like the. That's not how that works. You're just chasing some, like, affirmation and rage bait. And I think seeing. I feel like I heard from a lot of people in la, seeing all of the, like, condescension and smugness and misinformation on social media, like, just flipped them off of it. And they were just like, this is just not a good force in our lives.

[Jon Favreau]

We. And I won't bring up the whole thing. Cause we talked about it on Pod Save America, but we have this relief fund through Vote Save America. We had posted it for days, no problem. And then we posted it and like, we, quote, tweeted the clip of me with Gavin Newsom and put it there. And then everyone on the right, or a lot of people on the right, a lot of, like, people who work at right wing outlets, not just random.

[Max Fisher]

Twitter users, quote, unquote, Journalists.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, yeah, they. They are. You know, they accused us of, like, running a scam. We're just profit. Like, this was our moment when I was.

[Max Fisher]

How dare you raise money for fire.

[Jon Favreau]

Victims right as our, our city's burning. We thought, you know, and we all know people impacted and some of us were evacuated. We're all like, this is a good time to make some money and build an email list.

[Max Fisher]

But anyway, someone, to be clear, Neither of which happened. Neither of which happened. Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

But while this was going on on Twitter and I was doing what I always do, which is now yelling on Twitter, I'm still doing it. An organizer that I've known, he DMed me. Me and was like, very, very kindly, like, sending this with love. He was like. But he was like, he goes. He said one thing he's been thinking about over the last several months is that, like, Twitter is just. It's no longer the platform it was. Threads and Instagram are going that way as well. And what he meant by no longer was he's like, I don't even know if it's useful for organizing, for raising money for, like, what you guys are doing. You're trying to do this good. You're putting your clips from your podcast on. And like, I don't, like, for a while it was like, okay, maybe there's a little use. Then it's like, maybe it's just net neutral. And then you're like, is it actually like that, that link right now? We raised a lot after Saturday when that link went up, we raised like most of the money in the fund. More than we had in the last several days because I guess, great.

[Max Fisher]

But like, thank you, Molly Hemingway.

[Jon Favreau]

Right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Eric Eric Erickson and all. And all of our friends at Red State and the Free Beacon, National Review, all of our favorites anyway. But like, I don't, I. I don't know that it's. I don't know that it's worthwhile anymore. You know, I don't. And so that's the frets for the job, right? For like, politics, which I think is a whole other conversation which we should get into at some point. We should have a good con, having an episode about this. But also like, for personal, I'm Like I don't. And I've been doing a lot more Instagram because I've been trying to do less Twitter and because I just think Twitter sucks now and Instagram is becoming like this now too because I can very quickly get through your follows new Instagrams and now it's all suggested posts. And the suggested posts are not great.

[Max Fisher]

Right. I know. I think Instagram has been pushing in this direction for a while too. And especially with the changes now where they're gonna allow news again and politics. I'm sure it's gonna push hard in.

[Jon Favreau]

That direction and I just don't. I don't know. Are you gonna change anything about your. How are you thinking about this?

[Max Fisher]

Well, so I think we are all feeling this way. Like we have a clip from. It's a lot of fun clips this week. Las culturistas which the lead up to this is like us. They were talking about the fires now useless. The apps were for it.

[Jon Favreau]

Okay. It's a fucking dark day for social media when I log on and I see that people have all the fucking answers when it's like you clearly don't and can't. I think it's curtains. Oh God. Yeah. Tik Tok band take it at this point. Zuck being Zuck, like it's. It's just. It's over.

[Max Fisher]

Curtains for social, Curtains for soc is so funny. I love it. I. I have been. We've been using like the. My friends are all saying curtains for so to each other now. But is is to say it's like it's not just us, it's not just like politics addicts. We're tired of getting yelled at or whatever. It's like everybody is feeling this. This way. So I had a actually like a real spiral about this this week. Like really feeling bad about it. This story does circle back to a happy ending. So it's not going to be a doom spiral. But here's a representative scrape of social media as I experienced it this week. Everything with the fires TikTok the tens of millions of views to outright misinformation on the ban Twitter. One of the top most viral tweets I saw is a viral tweet with three and a half million views. 60,000 interactions claiming that Joe Rogan is a CIA op to control the population. The mainstream media is in on it. The leaders of the mainstream media led a controlled demolition of all newspapers to herd its readers from newspapers to Rogan millions of views, everybody agreeing with it. On Instagram, one of the biggest things that went viral this week was Ethel Cain, the pop star, pushing the hashtag, you're gonna love this one. Kill more CEOs.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, yeah, heard about that one.

[Max Fisher]

And part of the justification for why we should all be going out and killing CEOs is that both parties are the same on climate and refuse act because they're both equally corrupt on climate, which, as we've discussed, is just factually.

[Jon Favreau]

Not correct about to confirm a literal oil industry CEO to be the energy secretary.

[Max Fisher]

Which is. And it's. And it's not. It's not just that Republicans are bad on climate, which is not new information. It's the fact that the Democrats passed this huge climate bill, spent the very.

[Jon Favreau]

Little capital Joe Biden had right on this climate, of all the issues.

[Max Fisher]

And a lot of the people in the constituency for that literally don't know what happened, because they get their news from social media apps that lie to them about climate policy because doomerism and nihilism perform better. And then that leads people like our friend Ethel Cain to think, we need to start killing CEOs. I'm not even gonna get into what I saw on Blue sky because it would frankly take way too long to unpack and would not be interesting to anyone except, like, you and five other people. But it was also bad. And it just. It really made me spiral because it started. Started to feel to me like some critical mass of our society has just willfully chosen this and is just choosing to say, you know what? I want to be misinformed. I want to be misinformed because it's affirming, it's engaging, it's entertaining, it's better than reading the news. And that was scary to me because I spent my fucking life on the premise that it is helpful to inform people and that they want to be informed, that they want good information, that they want helpful analysis that will untangle things for them, that they want accountability, journalism. And it feels scary if you're just like, your life's work and people are like, actually, I would rather be on the viral video app that I know misinforms me. What I realized that made me feel better is that, like, wait a minute, we know from polls that most people, like, actually don't like this, right? They don't like being on their phones. They're not happy about it. Most people support.

[Jon Favreau]

They don't want to be misinformed.

[Max Fisher]

Right? Well, I mean, I think.

[Jon Favreau]

I do think, like, I don't think anyone goes into it being, like, I love being misinformed.

[Max Fisher]

I Think we make choices.

[Jon Favreau]

We make choices. But I also think that we are again, talked about this a lot, but like, I think there is a disconnection, Alienation, social alienation issue. Loneliness.

[Max Fisher]

Totally.

[Jon Favreau]

And we are longing for connection.

[Max Fisher]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

And this is the connection. And it's making us feel something. Angry, scared, happy, joking around, whatever it may be. We're feeling something and we are thinking that we are part of a community when we're there. And it's, it's a, it's again, it's the illusion of a community, but illusion of connection. Yeah, but that's what people. I think that's what, that's the addictive quality of it.

[Max Fisher]

I think it's a lot of that. I think it's also like there are literally physically different parts of our brain that process information simultaneously. And there is a part of our brain that process it through emotion and identity that latches onto misinformation because it makes us feel good. And sometimes we indulge that knowingly. There's a part of our brain that actually does want to understand the truth. The part of our brain that acts on emotion and identity literally operates faster. You get the, the hormone boost from that before the rational part of your brain even kicks in. Which means when you have these apps that are shoving the identity affirming misinformation in front of you, that's what I mean by you choose it.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Well, no, I mean, people are listening to this and they're probably like, okay, John told us he was going to post more as a resolution. He's tried to quit. Now he's on there. He said he's not going to get more fights. And then I like, look, when I was Saturday fighting about the vote Save America thing, I was miserable all day Saturday, miserable day. And Emily's like, why are you so upset? And like the end of Saturday, I'm like, I told her the whole story. And I'm like, I know better. I've talked about this.

[Max Fisher]

I have not showed about it and.

[Jon Favreau]

I'm still doing it.

[Max Fisher]

I do it. I do it all the time. We all do it all the time. It is hard not to get pulled into it. It's hard not to feel it because you open up the app and it's what everybody, everybody is doing. Yes, Everybody's behaving that way. So it feels like consensus. And this was also part of my, like, feeling better is that the apps were telling me everyone is choosing misinformation. But what do I know? The apps, do they present a false consensus Based on these small handful of people who use the apps the most, who post on it the most. And the thing I also remembered is that we as a society never chose this. All of these apps were marketed to us as, like, stay in touch with your friends, share. Share photos with your pals. And then news and information snuck into them. And then we all kind of, like, got addicted to it. We all knew that it was bad. We all know that we hate it. And I think that, like, I got.

[Jon Favreau]

Some candy in my van.

[Max Fisher]

That's what it was first free. It is a lot of that. And look, a lot of us are addicted. I have a hard time not opening up, but anything that has been trained into us against our wills, and that is what the social media companies are doing, which we know they're doing it because they used to openly. We are trying to train the users to be addicted to our platforms. You can have untrained, and in order to want to be untrained, you have to see that it is happening to you in the first place. And that is hard to do. And I know I make the comparison to cigarettes a lot, but the line between when we realized that cigarettes were A, addictive and B, harmful for our health and when we as a society started to actually reduce our rates of addiction, it took a long time. It took like 40 years. I think that we are probably on a faster timeline than that, because where we are right now in regulating social media is way ahead of where we were in regulating cigarettes 10 years into understanding that cigarettes were harmful. But I'm trying to remember that just because we knew social media was bad eight years ago, when Trump was elected the first time, and now we're all even more addicted to social media and newspapers are crumbling even more. Because so many people get their news from these platforms does not mean that hope is lost, because we are all starting to understand what these platforms are doing to us and that we don't want it and that it's bad for us, even if in the moment it's really, really hard to remember that, and it's much easier to indulge it.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, and like on the journey to banning or on the journey to, like, reducing smoking or getting people to, you know, who are addicted to. Who are alcoholics or addicted to drugs, like on that whole journey is a lot of people rationalizing.

[Max Fisher]

Yeah, that's true.

[Jon Favreau]

No, no, no. My cigarette's okay. And no, no, I found some information that actually smoking is good for you, and also that I can drink and I'm fine. I can have a couple drinks. It's not a big deal. What are you talking about? There's always resistance in your own mind when you're dealing with addictive behaviors.

[Max Fisher]

And it is tricky with social platforms because something that people in Silicon Valley will point out that has some truth to it is that it's not like social platforms provide zero social utility. Cigarettes provide zero social utility other than looking cool as hell. Social media is like, not exclusively bad for you. It is more bad for you than it is good. But I would not tell people, delete every social media app on your phone because I wouldn't do that.

[Jon Favreau]

There's versions of social media that could work.

[Max Fisher]

There's versions that work. Even at its most harmful, there are things I find useful for it as a way to aggregate links to get good information. To answer your question, like what am I doing with my media diet? Is that I feel like something I learned when we did the Offline Challenge last year, two years ago, or I don't know what time is anymore, is that the hardest part of cutting down social media use is cutting down use of your phone. When you're on your phone, it's really, really hard not to open that app. So I'm spending more time physically separated from my phone. I just spend a few hours a day overnight. I leave it in another room and it's been transformative. It's made like a huge difference.

[Jon Favreau]

I'm going to start doing that more. I know every time is a flat circle, but it's okay.

[Max Fisher]

I really recommend it. Just putting your phone in another space, you will find that you use it much less.

[Jon Favreau]

All right, guys, long show, good show. That's our show for today. If you like what you heard, remember to follow Crooked Media on Instagram, Twitter and Red Note.

[Max Fisher]

See you on challengeU. See you all next week. Foreign.

[Jon Favreau]

Is a Crooked Media production. It's written and hosted by me, Jon Favreau, along with Max Fisher. The show is produced by Austin Fisher and Emma Ilic Frank. Jordan Kanter is our sound editor. Audio support from Charlotte Landis and Kyle Seglin. Delon Villanueva produces our videos each week. Jordan Katz and Kenny Siegel take care of our music. Thanks to Ari Schwartz, Madeline Herringer and Adrian Hill for production support. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. Building a business may feel like a big jump, but on deck small business loans can help keep you afloat with lines of credit up to $100,000 and term loans up to $250,000. OnDeck lets you choose the loan that's right for your business. As a top rated online small business lender, OnDeck's team of loan advisors can help you find the right business loan to fit your needs. Visit ondeck.com for more information. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by On On Deck or Celtic Bank. On Deck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amount subject to lender approval. Skipping cold and flu season is Plan A, but if you do get sick, be prepared for Plan B with Kleenex lotion tissues. Kleenex lotion tissues moisturize skin, helping prevent the added discomfort of red, irritated skin on top of your cold and flu symptoms. So this cold and flu season, grab Kleenex lotion tissues, visit kleenex.com to learn more and buy now for whatever happens next. Grab Kleenex.