 Welcome back to Think Tech. This is American Issues Take One. I'm Jay Fidel. Today we're going to talk about why the select committee did not include social media, the social media report that we have seen. And what happens to that report now? You know, we're going to discuss the report prepared by staffers of the January 6th committee, why the report was written, what evidence was gathered, how persuasive was it, what were the conclusions they made? How do those conclusions relate to the main 845 page report, why the social media report was not included in the main report, and what will happen to it now? So these are very interesting questions and they're really not resolved, but maybe we can get closer to what happened and why. We have Chuck Crumpton and Cynthia Sinclair will be right back in a moment. Okay, Cynthia Sinclair, a regular contributor, Chuck Crumpton, an attorney and host of a number of other shows here on Think Tech, an esteemed guest here on American Issues. Thank you very much for joining us today. This is not an easy show. I sent you the draft report, 122 pages, and I sent you a Washington Post article, which was almost as long as the report itself, which talked about it and analyzed it and tried to make sense of it, but it isn't easy. So let's start with you, Cynthia. Why was this report prepared? Well, partly it was one of the mandates of the committee itself when it was formed is partly why they had to look at it. It was part of their job as the committee going forward in the investigations that they were doing. Yeah, it was done by staffers. It was never in a public forum. It was never one of the specific hearings, as I recall they had. And so, you know, why did it not, this is the main question of our discussion, why did it not get included in the final report the committee issued? You'd think 122 pages is no big deal, either to be in the 845-page report or as an appendix to the 845-page report. But it was in neither place. There were only oblique references, hither and yon, but nothing serious. And yet, you know, this was, we all know this was the way the insurrectionists talked to each other. It was the way Trump fomented them. It was the way they communicated and built their conspiracy. And yet, that report doesn't get in. Why not? I believe it is because they were trying to make sure they kept their focus on Trump. They didn't want the social media's role in all of this to take away from who started it, right? Sure, they fomented it, and they made it worse and all of that stuff. They allowed places for these people to organize and plan. But if you remember, during that whole section of time, in between the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection, they actually were bringing the head people of Twitter and Facebook, they were bringing them in to Congress. They were having to testify before Congress. Why were they allowing all this hate speech to go on? Where were their safety and trust, you know, elements of their business? So I came across a new word that I think, for me anyway, it just sort of, after reading this whole, it was 122 pages, right? 128, 122 pages. And it was very complex and confusing and kind of overlapped itself a lot. So it came across this word, it's a new one. Pistified. It's the state of being equal parts of pissed off and mystified at the same time. How could this happen? I kept asking over and over, mystified. How could this get to this point? And then pissed off about it because how dare they allow these people to just foam at the mouth with racist comments and violence, lock and load was, you know, at the base, at the bottom of hashtag lock and load was at the bottom of every, you know, message or post that was made. So those things are really concerning to me, but I'm not so concerned with the fact that they didn't include it because it didn't include it in part of it. It's on page 70 through 78 of the main 800 page report. So they did include some of it, but they didn't include this whole thing. Maybe that's partly why the fact that was really complex, really confusing, overlapped itself a bunch of times and things like that. So today, as we get moving on, I've got some clips from it that maybe sort of help make it make more sense. Okay. Well, we know the four corners of how Cynthia thinks about this. And I'll tell you, I started out with being disappointed in the committee. This was a, this was a problem up till the final report. I didn't think there was a problem, but when the Washington Post article came out and the draft report came out, I was frankly disappointed. How about you? What are your thoughts? So first, we need to step back a little bit. Look at the committee's role, purpose, and function, and the timing. They're going into an election season. They have four prospects. Everybody was saying up until November of 2022 that the Democrats are going to lose the House big and maybe the Senate as well. So they have a political objective. Second, it's a strategy that the Republican strategy has always been diffusion and distraction with three basic principles. They don't care whether it's true or no. They don't care whether it comes from, or whether the sources are impeachable. Good choice of words or not. And second, they don't care who it impacts or how adversely. They're completely morally, politically irresponsible in their strategy. So the only thing in that context as a strategy that might have a hope of success is clear, direct focus on the witnesses from the Trump camp itself. And that was the focus. And it was pretty effective, given what was expected of them, given the criticisms that were intended to be level. The Republican criticisms of the January 6th committee presentations fell on pretty deaf ears. They were not very effective. And the midterm results were far better for the Democrats. And they were far better against the election deniers and the people who supported that January 6th insurrection strategy. So to offer the Republicans the ability to distract and diffuse with social media commentary, make the battle over there. The second thing is it gives up control of the narrative. The Democrats to the extent it was possible in the January 6th committee gained more control of the narrative than they had had in the last four and a half years. So I don't fault them for leaving out the 122 page report or all but eight pages of it. It's a strategy. It's a focus. And it was effective for them. Let me ask you this. So I mean, you're concerned that the Republicans would have criticized, would have had a distraction, had the committee focused on social media in their hearings and in their report. But would that have been so if they simply finalized the draft report and attached it as an appendix? But why would you want to do that? If you boiled it down to the points that you believe are the most focused, the most evidentially supported and the most effective, why would you want to offer diffusion and distraction with social media just as a context by itself? What we need to understand about the American public is they don't focus on the message. They focus on the media. If the battle becomes over social media and its misuse, then it dissolves into a First Amendment versus whatever by not democracy is at stake fighting. Well, well, I'm not sure I agree with that because social media has done a lot to undermine democracy. Don't you agree? And we need to know how it works. Congress doesn't know how it works. We've heard that there were witnesses and hearings about how deadly social media has been over the Trump years. But it was clear from the questions that have been asked in other contexts, other hearings, that Congress and the staff of Congress don't really know how it worked. And there was one point where they were asking questions that were really naive questions. And then they went into recess, did nothing for a year. When they came back, they asked more questions which were equally naive. And they have never taken action about social media. So, you know, to me, of course, we want to focus on Trump and we want hand the DOJ something. Although, you know, frankly, I was wondering what the DOJ was doing itself. Allowing this committee to do its work for us was really not a good solution. But okay, they were handing Trump to the DOJ. That's what they thought. And that's why they focused on it. But, you know, big problem here for democracy is that social media is a kind of communication that tends to break democracy. And it almost did. It allowed for a national conspiracy. These guys would never have been able to achieve the same level of conspiracy without social media. And we took no steps before, even though we knew is a risk. And we took no steps after, even to publish our findings. And I'm not sure how good the findings are. I think Cynthia raised a good point, you know, how well was that draft written? It was drafted, probably needed work. But somebody has to make an analysis of A, how social media works, B, how it works, you know, in a political environment. And C, what if anything can be done? We do have the First Amendment, you know, it's a problem. But, you know, I think to leave it out completely, essentially, you can say eight pages, but eight pages is one percent of 845 pages. So to leave it out completely leaves me wondering. And one of the things I wonder about is Zoe Lundgren, who is a representative in the House of Representatives. She represents Silicon Valley, you know, where a lot of those companies are located. They are her constituents and they support her. And so there is a kind of uncomfortable connection there. And don't forget that these companies have unlimited amounts of cash, the lobby. And they do lobby. And they come around and they bring their big, you know, cheeses in. And the whole thing is very slick about how they're doing a good job. We only realize just how deadly they have been and can be when we watch Twitter and Elon Musk and the failure of the moderating employees. You know, at the end of the day, there were like six of them left at the time. And six is really not enough. And the one woman who was doing it, you know, trying to moderate that she was working, you know, day and night and getting nowhere with all these hate messages on Twitter. So, you know, I really think we have to take action. And let me say that the failure to include this is really a statement that it doesn't matter. And if it doesn't matter, we don't do anything about it, even if we could get Congress together on that. And if we don't do anything about it will happen again. Cynthia, your thoughts? Well, I agree with you that something needs to be done. I agree with you that it will happen again if nothing is done. But I've heard Jamie Raskin, I've heard Eric Swalwell pick this up. They're not going to just leave it. They're not done. Social media is an issue that's so huge all by itself that I agree with Chuck that to try to put it into the report would have diluted the responsibility being pointed at Trump. Now, I have some clips that I've taken out of here. And one of the things, and this one of the things that I noticed is that it repeats itself a lot of different times throughout this report. But it says platforms are responsible for conducting due diligence against abuse of their services. The largest platforms, including those subpoenaed by the committee, had developed increasingly complex policies in recent years for moderating content, including hate speech, violent incitement, and misleading claims affecting elections, public health and public safety. So you have to remember to write that all that stuff about COVID was part of social media. And if it was just the January 6th stuff that was included to go after them, what about all that? So I'm glad it didn't get looped in with the report because it needs, all of it needs to be investigated, not just that tiny part. But at any rate, it goes on to say, meanwhile, most fringe and alt-tech platforms like GAB or 8KUN exist in opposition to prevailing norms and standards around content, moderation, often aligning with right-wing figures who believe larger platforms undo recensor conservative speech. There is another part, though, that I read that talks about how clearly they were able to prove that there is no against... See, they're trying to claim undo censorship of conservative speech. Yet, Quitter left Trump on there until January 6th, right? It was until the insurrection. Trump wasn't... He wasn't stopped. He wasn't locked out of his thing, his what you call it, nothing like that. So they're obviously glaringly lying and full of hypocrisy when they say those things. And I think when they start into an investigation of all of it and all of the problems, they'll be able to stop it from going forward a little bit more. But, you know, Facebook has... That's high in the sky, Cynthia. What an investigation. Remember at the end of the year of the Congress, the House of Representatives was changed. And the guys who might have investigated that are off the committees, there is no select committee at all. And that report is the last statement we will hear from that committee. There will be nothing else. And do you think the Republicans, at least in the House, will support a continuation or another investigation into social media? No way. Jose, not a chance. They'd rather... They'd rather investigate Hunter Biden. And Joe Biden. They already have a select committee going after Joe Biden. Yeah. And the people who were on the select committee, you know, who might have, you know, stayed on and done more, they're off. So, you know, and we knew, we knew this was going to happen. This is not a surprise. We knew that at the end of the year, the select committee would be dissolved and finished and couldn't come back. And their report, to the extent it was finished and final, would be, you know, circulated among the public. To the extent it was not finished and final and didn't include elements like this element, it was not going to be published. And it was a lucky break that the Washington Post published it. But the fact is that it's not part of the report. And it doesn't have the committee's imprimatur, and there will not be another investigation. And we will not get to the bottom of this, even though, in my view, it's central to what happened. And I think in your view, too. What about your view, Chuck? Can I just respond one second? I agree that it is central to what happened. But I don't think it is central to going forward with the just their investigation. That's what I'm trying to say. It's bigger than just the select committee for January 6th. And I think that maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but I don't think that an investigation into social media is off the table. Because I think that the DOJ can do it. I think there can still be an investigation. Well, they are doing antitrust cases right now. Thank you. See, that's what I don't think. That's antitrust. That's not really getting to the bottom of the problem. Chuck, your thoughts. I know since you intervened there for a moment, but I would like to hear your thoughts. No, I think your point is spot on, Jay. That social media itself has become not only a source of but a home to some of the worst abuses of truth and misinformation and disinformation that we have ever seen in our history and never on this scale. When you combine that with the realization that there are whole generations out there who are looking to social media as their source of information on news, on politics, on virtually all topics, it's a really scary combination. It absolutely does need to be brought under control. There are no journalistic standards that are applied to social media. Leadership of social media, as Elon Musk has shown, can completely subvert anything that might move toward more responsible, more corroborative information gathering and dissemination. In fact, Musk has just put Fuentes and some other neo-Nazis back onto Twitter. They're out of control, but you're exactly right also on your second point. The likelihood that the right wing and the Republican Party generally will even consider or indulge anything that moves in the direction of controlling that, of bringing more responsibility, of establishing standards is extremely small. When look at what they're doing, look at the people they're putting in charge of completely politicized committees that have nothing to do with solving any of the national problems, affordable housing, healthcare, homelessness, education, any of our major problems. None of that. They're purely political. I feel that we're not getting the whole story. That's what I feel. Part of the story, and I would like you guys to comment on this, part of the story emanates from the original impeachment about Trump trying to do a transactional quid pro quo with Zelensky. This is what, how many years ago, it's a 2017. And at the time, it started to come out in the Mueller report, and he made reference to it in his final statements, which I did not think were all that helpful. Neither the report nor his final statements, especially when Bill Barr sabotaged the report. But the implication was that Putin was using social media in 2016, trying really hard to get the word out through social media that Trump was a better candidate. And he was playing in the bubble. He was building the base. He was using very sophisticated techniques as Putin knows how to do and propaganda through social media. We never really got that straight. The impeachment was a really disappointing failure. Bob Mueller was a disappointing failure. Bill Barr was a disappointing failure. And we never closed on that issue. Exactly what did Vladimir Putin do to our election? Furthermore, we've had a couple of elections since then. And can we be convinced that Putin didn't do precisely the same thing? They try to help Trump and help the Republicans? That's his thing. They're buddies. It was clear. Remember, all those scenes in the paper and in the video about how they were buddies, and Trump was capitulating to Putin in so many ways. So I don't think that this is just a national issue. I don't think, I mean, I don't know what was in the 122 pages about this, but I do think that it involves other people outside the country like Vladimir Putin who manipulate the social media. They're not Twitter necessarily, but they use Twitter. And so what's happening here is a whole bunch of things playing together to achieve this really corrupting corrosive influence on our democracy. So Cynthia, where does Putin fit in this? Is he irrelevant? Or is he part of the problem? What are we going to do about it? I think that he is part of the problem. I think he's a gigantic part of the problem. And it's not just Trump. You can tell that there's a lot of Republicans in the Senate and in the House that are all pro-Putin. They think he's just wonderful, and they want to support him, and they want to take away Ukraine's money, and they think we shouldn't support Ukraine and all of that stuff. And if you go on Twitter these days and you scroll down through the comments, right, when it's a political comment, and you can tell which ones are bots. They're not people. You can tell they are absolutely not people. They are just trying to cause trouble. They're just trying to be the devil's advocate and make people mad. And it works. And in the beginning, before I realized what was going on, I made me mad. And then I realized, oh, just a bot. I'm not even talking to a real person. This is crazy. But people don't realize that. And that's what's dangerous. Well, that's another element in the news, isn't it? And maybe it's existed for a while, but we didn't know about the chat, GBT, whatever it's called, the AI that is a bot, a very sophisticated bot, and you can have it draft language and then promulgate, send language out, propagate it all over the country. No human being is involved, and yet it seems like it might be a human being. And this is perfect. It's perfect for all kinds of electrical transmissions, electronic transmissions, but it's most perfect for social media. We are going to see this again, aren't we Chuck? We're going to see this in our politics, in our representative government again. And we can easily imagine another insurrection. It'd be not exactly the same kind, but under a conspiracy that is organized through social media, which we have not reformed in any way. What happened can happen again. Let me say, will probably happen again with social media. Have we cleaned it up? What do you think will happen? Now, on your spot on, and let's not lose track of, particularly with Trump, follow the money. It's not just Putin and Russia. The Saudis and that money and Trump are a big part of this. OPEC stepped up and basically adopted a policy that supported Russia on its oil and fossil fuel reserves, in ways that enable it to continue and expand its war in the Ukraine. That's going to continue. There are going to be international impact. Erdogan is now trying to keep Sweden out of NATO. All of these are happening on international fronts. Don't for a minute think that there are not coordinated, cohesive, powerful strategies behind all of these things. So social media is a source and home for abuse that has to be dealt with. But we're not in a political position right now to be able to even conceive of how to do that. Wow. There's a quotable quote for you, Cynthia. We're not in a position to fix it. So even if we were, it would be very hard to do it because it's complicated. We have the First Amendment in this country. We have to find ways to block bots and block people who speak of hate. And the answer may be in artificial intelligence, because if I make a hate speech, it can be identified by AI. And I don't think we're doing that at all. Matter of fact, I wonder, let me ask you this, Cynthia, what's the relationship with all the termination of employees by some of these big social media companies? Hundreds of thousands of employees, is that cover for terminating those who would moderate hate speech? It absolutely is. And they've already gutted their trust and safety departments. Twitter has, Facebook has. I think they were thinking they could get out of trouble if they didn't have anybody moderating. I'm not sure why they did all that. But at a time when they should have been increasing it, they decreased it, which is what's so bad. And I'll tell you the scary thing about that chat GPT thing is that they can take a picture of you or take a short video clip of you, and then they can make you saying things that you didn't say. And that's the scariest part about chat GPT. Right now, they've already got algorithms that can identify hate speech. They don't need that fancy AI to do it. They've already got algorithms that do it. But so I think we're just about out of time. Do I need my last words? Because I don't want to get into something else first. So let me read. This is from the committee report. The committee's investor from the AIDS, their AIDS report. The committee's investigation has identified many individuals involved in January 6, who were provoked to act by false information about the 2020 election, repeatedly reinforced by legacy and social media. The committee agrees that individuals remain responsible for their own actions, including their own criminal actions. But congressional committees of jurisdiction should continue to evaluate policies of media companies that have had the effect of radicalizing their consumers, including by provoking people to attack their own country. So it's not like they just said, well, never mind, it's not that important. We don't want to take off the focus off Trump. They did address that it was too big of an issue to try to put in there. And I agree. I think it is something that needs to be done. I think chances of getting it done. I agree with you guys are slim and none now, with this, you know, them having the control and the power in all the committees, but two years is not that far away. And if we can just get past that time and somehow have at least the trust issues that are being investigated somehow, you know, tighten things up at least enough, but they can do with the big companies. But every time they get caught doing something, and I'm talking about the people that are organizing on the platform, as soon as the platform tries to crack down, they just start another platform or they go to another group. So it's so hard to keep track and chasing them that that's why I'm still going to stick with my idea that in my opinion that I think they were right to leave it out in any big form. Why do I feel that although you're sticking with that position, it seems a little weaker at the end of this discussion than it did at the beginning. Okay, got it. You know, this morning I got an email from Common Cause and they reported that eight states in the union had voted for a constitutional convention. And those are Republicans voting for that constitutional convention in those states, Republican controlled legislatures. And, you know, go back to your earlier points, Charlie, you know, we were kind of at war here. Those conventions, if they get a convention, if they can somehow affect people to believe that a convention would be good, they can turn the whole thing upside down in a national constitutional convention. So, you know, I'm very concerned that the social media will play into that also and is playing into that also. And that's why eight states have gone that way. And this is, you know, extremely damaging, destructive to our democracy. So my question to you is, what in the world is going to happen? I mean, our discussion here does not suggest any cause for optimism. Have you got cause for optimism? Let's hear it. Not as long as the right wing and the Republican Party sees social media as their main means for the war against representative democracy. That's exactly what's going on here. That's what you pinpointed. That's what you've identified. And that's where helplessness, the inability to move forward against that platform is going to hurt us in the long run. If you see constitutional conventions as efforts by Republicans to move away from representative democracy, that will tell you how far they really have gone from the principles on which this country was founded. Okay, I'm going to take a deep breath and say farewell. Chuck Crumpton, Tithius and Claire, thank you for this very, very interesting discussion. Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. 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