Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (2014) s13e02 Episode Script
Epstein Files & Twitter
1
Welcome to "Last Week Tonight"!
I'm John Oliver, thank you for
joining us. It has been a busy week.
The Supreme Court struck down
Trump's tariffs,
and he met with his "Board of Peace",
shortly before going back
to pushing the U.S. toward
war with Iran.
But we're actually gonna start
in the U.K. this week,
where Thursday brought
some massive news.
This morning,
a stunning royal arrest.
Former prince Andrew
taken into custody from his home
in the English countryside.
It follows growing revelations
about the alleged connections
between the late sex offender
Jeffrey Epstein and Andrew.
It's true,
they arrested former prince Andrew.
And I don't know
why they're still going
with "alleged connections"
to Epstein there,
while also running a photo
that makes them look
like the two closest friends
I've ever seen.
It looks like they're brainstorming
a new podcast.
It looks
like Andrew's soft launching,
"Would it be crazy
if we moved in together?"
I'm just saying,
maybe drop the "alleged" part
when you're dealing with two guys
that look so close
they could finish each other's
prison sentences.
And if you're thinking, "Well, what
was the new revelation that did it?"
"Was it the grotesque new photo
of Andrew on all fours"
"over a young woman?"
Incredibly, no. It was apparently this.
The arrest reportedly linked
to emails released
by the U.S. Department of Justice
as part of the Epstein files
that show Andrew forwarding emails
to Epstein while he was trade envoy.
The emails, some dated in 2010,
after Epstein had been convicted
of soliciting sex from a minor,
show Andrew forwarding
British government files
from his trips to places
like Hong Kong and Vietnam.
Yeah, they got him
on forwarding documents,
which is a little underwhelming.
Though, to be honest, when it comes
to bringing down monsters,
I don't really care if it's for
a boring computer crime,
the same way I'm not that mad
if what finally ends a toddler
throwing a tantrum is a cardboard box.
The method doesn't matter,
what's important is
you have been stopped.
Andrew has repeatedly denied all
wrongdoing and has been released,
although that does not mean
he's been found not guilty.
All we really have to go on right now
is this fantastic picture of him
leaving custody.
And you can draw
your own conclusions there.
Reasonable people can disagree
on whether this makes him
look guilty or dead.
And I've got to say, even him being
taken into custody this week
must've been gratifying for some,
including anyone
who's ever had to work for him.
To hear at least one former officer
who was assigned to guard Andrew,
he wasn't the greatest
to be around.
Did Prince Andrew have
a nickname at that time?
His official code, so, if he
was to come into the palace,
his call sign was purple four one.
But he did have a nickname.
But it's a bit rude
for me to tell you.
I'll tell you, but you're not
gonna be able to air it.
- You want me to tell you?
- Yeah.
He was called The Cunt.
Yeah!
According to that guy, that was
Andrew's unofficial nickname.
And it's a little weird he was
so wary of saying that word on TV,
given he was appearing
on Australia's "60 Minutes".
And Australians say "cunt"
all the time.
I'm pretty sure Bluey's
said it at least three times.
But it's not just codename Cunt
here facing consequences.
Take Peter Mandelson, the U.K.'s
former ambassador to D.C.
He's also under police investigation
for forwarding government emails
to Epstein, something he's denied.
And there are also questions about
how close they were,
especially given the sheer number
of photos of them together,
including this recently released one
of him in his underwear,
seemingly in Epstein's apartment.
And the very fact Prime Minister
Keir Starmer appointed Mandelson
ambassador in the first place
is now a major scandal.
His chief of staff and communications
director have resigned.
And it may not stop there.
The fallout is now directly
threatening the prime minister.
Keir Starmer has admitted
to Parliament
he knew of Mandelson's past
association with Epstein,
but that he had not been told
the truth
about the extent of the relationship.
The admission has
sparked a furious backlash,
including from members
of Starmer's own party,
who are openly questioning
his judgment and his leadership.
Right, because that shows
terrible judgment.
A crucial part of leadership is who
you pick to be on your team.
If the Raiders
decided at this year's NFL draft
to use their number one pick to
select Roman Polanski,
everyone involved in that decision
should probably be fired.
But here in the U.S., there's been
a notable lack of consequences
for several high-profile figures
who've appeared in the files.
Most notably,
this guy is still president.
But also, his commerce
secretary, Howard Lutnick,
Epstein's former next-door
neighbor, by the way,
has come under scrutiny.
Because he previously said
he met Epstein only once in 2005
and was so revolted, he declared,
"I will never be in the room with
that disgusting person ever again."
But new documents reveal not
only were they in touch after that,
Lutnick visited Epstein's island,
and he tried to justify like this.
I did have lunch with him
as I was on a boat going across
on a family vacation.
My wife was with me, as were my four
children and nannies.
We were on family vacation.
We were not a part,
to suggest there was anything
untoward about that in 2012,
I don't recall why we did it,
but we did.
To be clear, there was a lot untoward
about meeting Epstein in 2012.
He'd left jail three years earlier
as a sex offender,
and it was widely known what
kind of guy he was at that time.
And it's not a great look that it seems
the end of Lutnick's sentence,
"I will never be in a room with
that disgusting person again",
was apparently, "Unless, that is,
I can bring mah kids!"
But Lutnick is still in his job!
As, by the way, is Peter Attia,
who CBS News had only just hired
as part of their new roster
of contributors
when the files were released,
and the details about him
in there aren't great.
The celebrity longevity influencer
appears in the files
more than 1.700 times.
In 2015, Attia wrote,
"The biggest problem with
becoming friends with you?"
"The life you lead is so outrageous,
and yet I cannot tell a soul."
And that is not close
to the worst of it.
'Cause Attia also apparently wrote
to Epstein's assistant, saying,
"I go into JE withdrawal when
I don't see him," and wrote
to Epstein directly, saying
that, and I quote,
"Pussy is, indeed, low carb. Awaiting
results on gluten content, though."
Attia's apologized for those emails,
and has stepped down
as chief science officer of the
protein bar company David
following these revelations,
but incredibly, as of taping,
CBS News still seems to be
keeping him on as a contributor.
And it is wild that CBS News
somehow has lower standards
than a protein bar company
that markets their products
like this, and also like this.
And I'm not sure who at the
company thought their bars
needed to be "'80s horny"
but I hope they're gone, too.
I'm not saying Attia or
Lutnick have committed crimes.
But it is clear just how comfortable
far too many people were
looking past
Epstein's heinous actions.
And given the lack
of accountability in all this,
there's at least some
satisfaction in knowing
just how nervous some powerful
men must be feeling right now,
a nervousness that's kind
of hard to put into words,
but luckily, I think this picture
sums it up pretty well.
And now, this.
And Now: People on TV
Celebrate National Drink Wine Day.
Today is…
National Drink Wine Day!
It is recommended, friends,
to drink in moderation.
So, one glass that's this big.
It's Ash Wednesday. I'm Catholic.
They serve wine at mass.
Because of Lent,
make sure you eat fish today.
So, EP Micah hooked me up.
I don't really know if this
is a hookup guys,
but he hooked me up
with some fish sticks
and some generic wines.
It is Ash Wednesday. I think
this is interesting,
that it coincides
with National Drink Wine Day.
- Kind of is, isn't it?
- Is it?
- This is nice rosé for the day.
- How is it?
It's very good.
- National Wine Day, it is good.
- Tastes different at 6:45 AM.
Moving on. Our main story
tonight concerns Twitter,
or, as it's been called since Elon Musk
purchased it a few years ago, Twitter.
It's a site with exactly one good
account left: Gerald Stratford,
a retired British man who delights
followers with his giant vegetables.
I've just cut this big cabbage.
It's a PB for me.
I haven't got any scales big
enough to weigh it.
But I'm not worried about that,
it's a beautiful specimen.
Yeah, it is, Gerald!
And I for one am glad
that you cut that cabbage!
To be completely honest,
I haven't been this jazzed
to see a cabbage broken in half
since my wedding night.
Twitter has clearly changed
significantly in recent years,
and you can pinpoint
the moment that started,
because it's the day in October 2022,
when Elon tweeted a video
of himself carrying a sink
into Twitter headquarters, writing,
"Let that sink in", a joke
so funny I'm still laughing right now.
And he quickly made it clear that
the company was going to be different.
He changed Twitter's name to X,
announced an "extremely
hardcore" cultural reset,
and by his count, said he'd cut
about 80% of Twitter's staff.
And to hear Elon tell it,
he did this to protect free speech
and correct for what conservatives
considered a left-wing bias.
In fact, as far as he was
concerned,
nothing less than the fate
of the world was at stake.
The reason for acquiring
Twitter is because it was…
It was causing destruction
at a civilizational level.
You know, like Wormtongue
from "Lord of the Rings",
where he would just sort
of, like, whisper these, you know,
terrible things to the king.
So, the king would believe these
things that weren't true.
And they were pushing a nihilistic,
anti-civilizational
mind virus to the world.
Okay, for the record,
Twitter's not a good analogue
for Wormtongue at all, and I'm
guessing I don't need to explain why,
given the Venn diagram between
"viewers of this show"
and "people familiar with second-tier
'Lord of the Rings' characters"
is, I'm pretty sure,
a single circle-as round,
in fact, as the outermost
wall of Minas Tirith.
But what Elon's embrace of
so-called "free speech"
has actually resulted in
is much darker.
One study found a 50% increase
in posts containing hate speech.
And recently, you may've heard
about the platform's struggles
with "Grok's image editing tool,
which has allowed users
to create digitally altered,
sexualized photos of real people,
including minors."
And look, no one is saying Twitter
was perfect before Elon arrived.
It helped platform a lot of ugliness,
including but not limited to
our first shitposter president.
But it is genuinely worse now.
And you might think you already
know how bad it is,
or that it doesn't matter to you
because you're no longer on it.
But I promise, it's actually
worse than you think,
for reasons you may not know,
and in ways that will
unfortunately impact all of us.
So given that, tonight,
let's talk about Twitter.
And let's start with some of the most
visible changes Elon's made.
One of his first involved
the site's verification system,
which used to assign a blue
checkmark to anyone well-known enough
that they might need an official sign
that they were who they said they were.
Elon replaced that with a system
where anyone could get a blue check
if they simply became a premium user
who paid 8 dollars a month.
And that led to instant,
albeit very funny, chaos.
All of a sudden, scrollers saw
LeBron James asking for a trade,
oil company British Petroleum
admitting it killed the planet,
and drug manufacturer Eli Lilly
offering insulin for free.
It's true, fake accounts
sprung up all over the place.
Fake George Bush said
he missed killing Iraqis,
to which Fake Tony Blair
said, "Same TBH".
Fake OJ Simpson said,
"Not gonna lie, I did that shit."
And a fake American
Girl doll account said,
"Felicity owned slaves," continuing,
"I'm not even lying. Look it up."
Now, Elon eventually added
new grey and gold checkmarks
to help verify
some official accounts.
And while I'm not sure exactly
which fake tweet made him do that,
if I had to guess, it'd be this one
from a fake Tesla account that said,
"Our cars do not respect school zone
speed limits. Fuck them kids."
So, already, the site was
much less reliable,
because it was harder
to tell who was trustworthy.
But on top of that,
Elon took an axe to the site's
ability to deal with harmful content
by, among other things, slashing
its global trust and safety staff,
including reducing its full-time
content moderators by over 50%.
He also started restoring a lot
of accounts that had been banned
for violating the platform's policies
on things like abusive behavior
and inciting violence.
He memorably
brought back this guy,
as well as Alex Jones,
Andrew Tate, Nick Fuentes,
and U.K. anti-immigrant
crusader Tommy Robinson,
which I believe is known as
a "nightmare anything rotation".
And that was just the beginning.
Twitter accounts belonging to
far-right activists and QAnon theorists
have been reinstated according
to data reviewed by NBC News.
Hundreds of formerly banned users
now back on the platform
after Musk's Thanksgiving tweet
that "amnesty begins next week."
Yeah, he basically reinstated
a bunch of accounts,
including white supremacists,
and announced it on Thanksgiving.
Which, when you think about it,
is actually pretty thematically
appropriate for the holiday.
And when you take all of that
together, it is no wonder
the site became a fertile breeding
ground for hatred and misinformation,
and much less reliable when it came
to tracking breaking news.
One of the first clear signs of that
came in the wake of
the October 7th attacks in Israel.
Previously, at a moment like that,
people might look to Twitter
for information from journalists
and other credible people on the scene.
But a ton of misinformation
circulated there,
often from accounts boasting
misleading blue checks.
This video of a grieving boy
supposedly from Gaza went viral,
even though it was from at least
nine years earlier and taken in Syria.
And this clip supposedly
of Israeli rockets exploding
was actually from
a military simulation video game.
The account that posted
that, by the way,
conveniently titled Israel Mossad,
had gone from fewer
than 1.000 followers
when it first acquired
a blue check in September 2023,
to more than 230.000.
And that wasn't the only big change.
Twitter also started paying so-called
"creators" on the site.
Currently, if you're a premium user,
meaning you pay for a blue check,
you can get paid for your posts,
and your revenue is dependent
on how many other premium users
reply to, repost
and like your content.
And that has served some users
pretty well, like this guy,
who posted as "Freedom Uncut
Online," and was on Twitter a lot.
He says he spends up to 16 hours
a day on X,
sharing AI-generated
pictures like these and streaming.
While some of these
posts are obviously satirical,
others are less fantastical.
It's the more provocative content
that gets views, he tells me.
It's kind of interesting,
because…
The balance between free speech
and saying stuff that you know
is either untrue or you just say
it in a very brash way
to egg people on, is an
interesting era that we're in.
I know people that are
making…
The pay period's
every two weeks,
and I know people that are in
the thousand-plus range.
It is not the most
important thing there,
but it is genuinely incredible
to me that people can make money
posting "Matrix" memes of Trump
that read, "I can dodge bullets,"
not least because that's something,
and not to be a fact bitch here,
Trump didn't entirely do, if we're
just going to be sticklers about it.
And look, over 1.000 dollars
every two weeks
is clearly a good payday just
for posting.
Usually,
to make that kind of money online,
you need to be running
a crypto scam or selling feet pics,
and even that is only realistic
for those of us who happen
to be born with irresistible feet.
I would show you, but honey,
I don't do that for free.
And some accounts,
particularly on the far right,
have even made more, like
the anonymous "End Wokeness",
which once tweeted,
"Elon Musk wasn't kidding."
"Content monetization is real",
with a screenshot showing
earnings of over 10.000 dollars.
Now, I should say, most
accounts don't make that much.
But even relatively small amounts
can be an incentive
if, say, you live in another country,
where the cost of living is lower.
That may help explain the somewhat
awkward revelations from last year,
when Twitter suddenly allowed people
to see accounts' location information.
The X account MAGA Nation,
with nearly 400.000 followers,
boasts itself as standing strong with
President Trump and America first,
with post after post
backing Trump.
But one click shows it's based
in Eastern Europe.
Even President Trump himself
reposting several accounts
that are not from the United States
on his Truth Social platform,
like this account called
Commentary Donald Trump,
posting about whether
foreign-born citizens
should be barred from
running for office,
the account itself based in Africa.
Yeah, and that is not all, an account
called UltraMAGA Trump 2028,
claiming to be based in D.C.,
was also listed as being in Africa,
the account MAGA Nadine
was based in Morocco,
and the user at-American
was based in Pakistan.
Which is pretty surprising.
Finding out an account
called "at-American"
is based outside the U.S.
is kind of like finding out
that the person who runs Deuxmoi
is David Attenborough.
Sure, it's not illegal, and I guess
maybe the passion could be real,
but it certainly changes
how I think about things.
The point is, there is
an ecosystem of people,
both here and abroad,
who've discovered you can make money
off of pissed Americans staring
at their phones.
And to be clear: none of the
changes I've mentioned so far
involved secret tweaks
to Twitter's algorithm,
they just involved
changing who could post,
and what their incentives were.
As for what's happened behind
the scenes, that is harder to say.
Though some
who've run experiments on the site
have made
some troubling discoveries.
Sky News created a number of accounts
emulating British Twitter users.
Three were left-wing users,
three were right-wing,
and three were neutral, designed
to show no interest in politics.
When they tracked the content each
was pushed by Twitter's algorithm,
their findings were striking.
The result was that every account,
no matter their political orientation,
was fed a glut
of right-wing content.
Remember our left-wing users.
This shows what they saw
on the platform.
More than 40% came
from right wing accounts.
Compare that
to our right-wing users,
and look, they saw much less
left-wing content,
and a lot of right-wing content.
And then the neutral users,
who we designed not to show
any interest in politics.
They saw twice as much right-wing
content in the pink here
than they did left-wing
in yellow.
And that clearly suggests
that something is up,
even if we don't know the exact
algorithm changes that were made.
It's like when a Redditor found
that, statistically,
James Harden's poor performance
during away games
correlates with them happening in
cities with highly rated strip clubs.
Now, can we make concrete
statements about causality there?
Of course we can't. But the data
is making some loud suggestions.
Now, I have to say, X has announced
a new update to Twitter's algorithm,
which they've described
as "purely" AI-led.
Although, given Elon has a history
of trying to make his AI chatbot, Grok,
less "woke," leading to it, at one
point, calling itself "MechaHitler",
I'm not sure
how reassuring that is.
Elon's definitely shown a willingness
to tweak Twitter's algorithm
to drive certain kinds of content,
and sometimes for truly
embarrassing reasons.
There's a notorious incident involving
him going to the Super Bowl in 2023
and having a problem
with one of his tweets.
And I'll let this reporter
fill you in.
He tweets out basically his support
for the Philadelphia Eagles.
I think his tweet was something
like, "Go Eagles",
with a few American flags on it.
Biden, around the same time,
posts a somewhat similar tweet.
"Fly, Eagles, fly," and it's a
video of his wife, Jill Biden,
who's walking
with an Eagles jersey on.
The game goes on. Elon Musk
checks his phone. Weird.
It looks like Joe Biden,
who he's called "a damp sock
puppet in human form",
is doing much better than he is
in terms of engagement
on this very similar tweet.
At 2:36 AM, she says an
urgent message went out,
and roughly 80 engineers
were pulled into work.
And they're tasked with
fixing the issues with the algorithm.
That's true. Elon's tweet got less
engagement than Biden's did,
so 80 engineers were called
in at 2:00 in the morning,
and told, "This is high urgency."
And of course his tweet flopped.
It was terrible.
First, don't use American flags
when eagle emojis exist.
But also, "Eagles"?
Why call them by their
government name? Just post,
"Go Birds, eagle emojis,"
"Jalen Hurts can give
me a tush push any day!"
And you'd have cracked
a million likes instantly.
Now, reporters later learned that,
"after Musk threatened to fire
his remaining engineers,"
they built a system designed
to ensure that he, and he alone,
benefited from previously unheard
of promotion of his tweets
to the entire user base.
Which seems to be happening.
As basically whatever Elon's tweeting
about, people see it in their feeds.
When Fortune conducted
an experiment
to gauge how prevalent Musk
was on Twitter,
they set up a dozen
different test accounts,
and in approximately 90%
of the sessions they conducted,
a post from Musk appeared
at least once in the timeline,
usually much more often.
And even clicking "not interested
in Elon Musk" didn't change things.
In fact, after one test account
clicked exactly that,
posts from him
more than doubled.
At this point, it seems like
there's only one option
if you never want to hear
anything from Elon Musk,
and that's to be
his coolest child.
And Twitter thumbing the scale
toward Elon's interest is bad
for multiple reasons,
not limited to his god-awful jokes,
his history of invoking extreme ideas,
like the antisemitic great
replacement theory,
and the fact he was apparently
a driver of U.S. election
misinformation in 2024.
But perhaps the biggest
cause for concern
is the fact our current
government is troublingly dependent
on Elon's platform.
The Trump administration
is painfully online,
and particularly on Twitter.
JD Vance has said that
he's a "Grok guy",
Kash Patel's repeatedly
fumbled FBI investigations
by prematurely announcing
suspects on Twitter,
and this photo
of the makeshift Situation Room
during the U.S. military
operation in Venezuela
showed a Twitter feed with
"Venezuela" in the search bar.
And I'm not sure anything could
inspire less confidence than that,
other than Google results for,
"Who is Venezuela?"
And at best, the consequences
of doing this
are that the government just ends up
doing dumb stuff,
like when someone on Twitter
seemed to convince Elon
that the "gold inside Fort Knox
might be missing."
The Washington Post
traced it back to this tweet,
suggesting he take a look
to make sure it was still there.
Musk replied,
"Surely it's reviewed every year?"
to which the account
responded, "It should be. It isn't."
Just two days later, Musk tweeted,
"It would be cool to do a live video
walk through of Fort Knox."
And not long after,
this came out of the mouth
of the president of the United States.
We're actually going to Fort Knox
to see if the gold is there.
Because maybe somebody stole
the gold. Tons of gold.
Okay. Well, let us know,
I guess!
Honestly, I know it's probably
not a great use of taxpayer money,
but I think I'd be okay if
he spent the rest of his presidency
trying to solve low-stakes
mysteries he found on Twitter.
Visiting Fort Knox because
someone said the gold might be missing
or pawing around in the White House
garden with a magnifying glass
because Kourtney Kardashian once
tweeted, "Do ants have dicks?"
It wouldn't be
the worst use of his time!
Anything that keeps him busy,
really.
But wild gold chases
are the best-case scenario here.
Because we've talked before about
how misinformation on Twitter
led to actual spending cuts during
Elon's time at DOGE.
But it goes well beyond that.
A nominee for a senior administration
post recently told the New Yorker,
"If we have something that's popular
in right-wing Twitter,"
"the White House is acting
on it 90-plus percent of the time."
And Trump appointees
like Harmeet Dhillon,
the assistant attorney general
for civil rights,
will sometimes openly brag about
taking work cues from social media.
I have a big social media following
from before I joined the DOJ,
about 1.5 million-plus
followers online.
It is a way to find information.
Today, I don't actually
watch television very much.
I don't have the TV on
in the background,
because TV is like 12 to 24
hours behind what's really happening.
And when the modern-day
journalist heroes,
who are the Nick Shirleys,
and you know, the Matt Taibbis,
and some of these others
who, you know, right or left,
they're the ones who are getting
the leads
and sharing
the stories in real time,
those are the ones
I pay attention to.
And where we get
our attention on something…
Or Libs of TikTok is also
a great source for some of our issues
involving schools
or employment.
We do open up investigations
based on internet leads.
And I am proud of that.
Okay, first, bragging about
your Twitter followers
is just embarrassing,
and it gets even worse
when you learn that last
December, Dhillon tweeted,
"I've been stuck at pretty much
the same level of followers"
"on this account since
I started my government job."
"What, am I chopped
liver over here?"
"What kind of content do my folks
want to see more of to like and share?"
To which I'd respond, I guess
I'd love to see a resignation letter,
if you're taking requests.
But also, it's a little hard
to hear her complain about
a lack of followers,
given she routinely pumps out
duds like this recent one,
"On the road. Timeline cleanse
knitting after a day of hard work."
"Cashmere hat for a man."
And this one, also about
a hat, but in which she throws in
the R-slur for good measure.
And what the fuck is that?
That is a hard unfollow for me
for the assistant attorney
general for civil rights.
But there are obvious issues
with the government taking cues
from accounts that Dhillon
just described,
because some are posting deeply
irresponsible rage bait.
Take a guy she mentioned
there, Nick Shirley.
He's the 23-year-old right-wing
influencer
behind a viral "investigation" of
Minnesota day cares in December.
They were actually playing a clip
of it during her interview there.
Shirley posted it on YouTube first,
but it quickly went viral on Twitter,
where it's so far garnered over
140 million views.
And it's worth knowing just
how flimsy it was.
For context, allegations of social
services fraud in Minnesota,
some of it by Somali Americans,
"have been the subject"
"of federal investigations and
media coverage for years" now.
Dozens of people have already
been convicted as a result,
with some investigations
still ongoing.
Still, Nick Shirley decided to do some
"investigating" of his own,
by showing up at day cares,
demanding to see proof kids went there,
and in some instances,
asking if he could enroll
his nonexistent child.
When he wasn't able to, he
concluded the businesses were fronts.
It was a truly ridiculous stunt,
as he sort of acknowledged
when pressed on it
by an actual reporter.
But surely you don't think
a day care should just be unlocked?
You shouldn't be able to
just walk into a day care.
- There should be a reception.
- No. The every-day care is locked.
Their doors are locked.
You bring up a fair point.
But then, why can't they give me
information on how to enroll a child?
First, I love the slight pause there
after Shirley was told
day cares are not typically
open to strangers with cameras.
Just the slow realization
that a locked door
is one of the basic things
every day care should have,
along with crayons, interlocking
foam tiles, tiny tables and chairs,
and so many germs, every part
of your insides will be coated
with phlegm
for the next two years straight.
That is what day cares are!
But also, if you really want the latest
right-wing rallying cry to be
"day cares should have a guest
reception for random men"
"without children who just want to
poke around and film some shit",
I'd love to see how that
turns out for you.
Now, you won't be surprised
to learn that state investigators
conducted compliance checks
after Shirley's videos went viral,
and found that the day cares he visited
were "operating as expected"
and that kids were present at all
sites except for one,
and that is only because it wasn't
yet open for families for the day
when inspectors arrived.
But the thing is,
it was already too late,
because Elon absolutely
loved that dumb video.
He tweeted, retweeted,
and engaged with a truly
absurd number of posts about it,
or the claims that it made, in the
days after the video went online.
And unsurprisingly, the Trump
administration took notice.
The day after it was posted,
JD Vance tweeted about it,
saying it was "more useful
journalism than any of the winners"
"of the 2024 Pulitzer Prizes",
which, given one of them focused
on "tactics authoritarian regimes use
to repress dissent in the digital age,"
feels a bit on the nose.
Two days after that, Kristi Noem
posted a clip of ICE agents
apparently conducting
a "massive investigation"
into childcare fraud
in Minneapolis.
And the next day, Trump's
then-deputy secretary at HHS
posted on Twitter,
tagging Nick Shirley,
and including this video,
that was then retweeted by HHS.
Intrepid journalists have made
shocking and credible allegations
of extensive fraud in
Minnesota's childcare programs.
We believe the state of Minnesota
has allowed scammers
and fake day cares to siphon
millions of taxpayer dollars
over the past decade.
I know it is distracting,
because that man is hot as shit,
but if you can listen to his words
through the smoke show going on there,
they're actually very worrying.
In that post, they announced
they'd frozen funding to Minnesota,
and then quickly
tried expanding that
to encompass
five Democratic-run states.
And within two weeks, the
Trump administration sent
thousands of agents to Minnesota
to crack down on illegal immigration.
I don't think it's a stretch to say
that a lot of the shit
you saw in Minnesota
was caused, at least in part,
by this fucking tweet.
The point here is, Twitter has become
a sewer of misinformation,
with the power to bring about
troubling real-world impacts.
And to be clear, this is now
a problem that goes far beyond
this administration,
or this country.
Because to see just how dangerous
what Elon's built can be,
we actually have to
look at England.
In 2024, in a town called Southport,
three young girls were killed
in a knife attack. It was horrific.
In the immediate aftermath,
there was almost no public information
available about the attacker,
but nevertheless, a Twitter
account called "Europe Invasion",
known to publish anti-immigrant
and Islamophobic content,
baselessly suggested the suspect
was a Muslim immigrant.
By the time the killer was identified
as a non-Muslim British citizen
born to parents from Rwanda,
it was already too late,
as mobs were forming,
and after a vigil for the victims,
violence broke out near
a local mosque,
with people throwing bricks,
bottles, and other missiles at it.
And the imam there
still seems stunned
by the speed with which
it all accelerated.
We start getting messages
from friends and neighbors,
and saying there is a lot of people
accusing the attacker
of being a Muslim.
And then it's moving from
there, they said…
He is coming to this mosque.
And then it moved from there
very quickly.
We're talking
about within half an hour,
it became that we coerced him
into doing what he did.
Did you ever expect that hatred
would end up outside your mosque?
Never.
That is terrible. And given the killer
wasn't a member of that mosque,
or indeed, Muslim, of course you
wouldn't expect a hate mob to show up.
It makes literally as much sense
as a mob showing up at a Taco Bell
to protest the results
of an Orlando Magic game.
Hey, guys! Those two things
are unrelated,
you got some bad intel, go home,
you fucking idiots!
But from there, the riots
spread nationwide,
with mobs targeting mosques
and hotels housing asylum seekers,
and leading to what's been called
"the worst unrest the U.K. has seen
in more than a decade."
And it was significantly
fueled by Twitter,
with false or unfounded claims
about the Southport attacker
getting 155 million impressions
in the days after the attack.
And when the police there
eventually made arrests
for inciting racial hatred,
one of the men convicted happened
to be earning 1.400 pounds a month
from his activities on the site.
And it is hard to deny Twitter's
role as, at the very least,
an accelerant.
Two of the major voices
spreading dangerous misinformation
were Andrew Tate and Tommy
Robinson, who, remember,
Elon reinstated to the platform.
And Elon himself was acting
as a sort of amplifier,
to the point that he replied
to one post about the attacks with,
"Civil war is inevitable."
And it's not like some
of the key participants
have denied how critical
Twitter's role has been.
Robinson's far-right movement
picked up significant steam
in the wake of Southport, and here
he is, not long after the riots,
giving credit
where he feels it's due.
Look what we've achieved
in six months.
We've gone from…
Through the roof, thanks to Elon Musk,
built a cult movement, ready,
inspired many.
And we're ready.
Yeah, not great!
And if that wasn't bad enough,
Robinson hosted an anti-immigration
"Unite the Kingdom" rally in London,
and you'll never guess who he
managed to get as a special guest.
The huge crowds in Westminster
didn't turn out just for Robinson.
They were also
chanting someone else's name.
Elon Musk,
joining in from America.
Whether you choose violence
or not, violence is coming to you.
You either fight back or you die.
Okay, saying "fight back
or die" to that crowd
is so malevolent I can
barely wrap my head around it.
And I've got to say, what he's
doing there sure does seem
like a strong case of,
if I may quote Elon himself,
someone whispering terrible
things, things that weren't true,
and then pushing a nihilistic,
anti-civilizational mind virus
to the world.
It is Wormtongue-coded at
least, is what I'm saying here.
And look, this is typically where
I'd trot out my hit catchphrase,
"What can we do?". You know it,
people go crazy when I say it,
it's on T-shirts now, and I
can't walk down the street
without people begging me
to say it to them.
But right now, unfortunately,
there's not much we can push for
by way of solutions.
The fact is, a massive media
platform has been shaped
in the image of its poisonous owner,
and it doesn't seem
like Elon's gonna see the error
of his ways any time soon,
given his brain seems to be
thoroughly cooked
by the garbage he consumes
on his own site.
To be honest, he still doesn't seem
to have a coherent vision
of exactly what Twitter should be,
because just watch this recent
interview where he offers
a pretty grand vision for it,
but then gets tripped up
by the most basic follow-up
question imaginable.
And I promise this answer
is so much worse
than you are prepared for.
I just want to really have a global
platform that brings together…
It becomes as close to a collective
consciousness of humanity as possible.
And why is that important, Elon?
Collective consciousness?
To have one platform?
Why is that important?
I guess it's… You could
say, like, why…
If you consider humans
are composed
of around 30 to 40 trillion cells,
and, you know, there's trillions
of synapses in your mind.
The why of it, I guess,
is so we can increase
our understanding…
Increase our understanding
of the universe.
You know, at first,
I thought that was embarrassing,
what with the full 10 seconds
where Elon's brain seemed to buffer
like it's loading a video on AOL
in 1999,
but then I saw the little drawing
labeled "30 to 40 trillion cells",
and it all totally made sense.
So, it seems like the odds of Elon
fixing this are pretty slim.
Meaning all we can really control
is how we each interact with Twitter.
And I know that there are some
who think it's important to stay on it
to be part of "the town square",
although, given that town square
now resembles, if anything,
this…
I'm not sure much good-faith
debate is taking place there.
My personal advice is
not to post on it at all.
I haven't done that
in over a year,
although I will be going back there
tomorrow to post a link to this piece,
before going silent again
and prioritizing my OnlyFans.
I know people have their own
reasons for staying on Twitter.
Though for what it's worth,
a lot of what it does can be
replicated elsewhere.
If you want to stay in touch
with friends or contacts,
maybe try and connect
with them somewhere else.
If you spend most of your time
sending your significant other
memes and funny posts,
there are other sites
where you can find those,
but also,
maybe put your phone down
and take your wife out to dinner.
It's been a long time since you
went out without the kids.
And if you just
want to watch arguments,
may I recommend
the "Real Housewives" franchises,
the Shakespeare of the modern age.
All I'll say is, there are certain
areas, like news in particular,
where Twitter is
now worse than useless.
In fact, for breaking news,
it is an active liability,
as people routinely push out false
information in the wake of tragedies
and crises, often for money,
and there don't seem to be many
guardrails to stop them.
All of which is really a long way
of saying that the Twitter
that we may've once relied on
and the Twitter that was fun
and occasionally useful
is just well and truly gone.
And collectively,
while it might be sad,
it might be past time
for all of us to,
if I may borrow a truly
poisoned phrase,
let that sink in.
That's our show, thanks so much
for watching, we'll see you next week!
Good night!
How about this for a parsnip?
Straight out of my raised bed.
The raised bed is from there,
until there.
And the parsnip has gone
from top to bottom.
Will enjoy that today.
It's beautiful, we love parsnip
în lots of different ways.
Cheers!
Welcome to "Last Week Tonight"!
I'm John Oliver, thank you for
joining us. It has been a busy week.
The Supreme Court struck down
Trump's tariffs,
and he met with his "Board of Peace",
shortly before going back
to pushing the U.S. toward
war with Iran.
But we're actually gonna start
in the U.K. this week,
where Thursday brought
some massive news.
This morning,
a stunning royal arrest.
Former prince Andrew
taken into custody from his home
in the English countryside.
It follows growing revelations
about the alleged connections
between the late sex offender
Jeffrey Epstein and Andrew.
It's true,
they arrested former prince Andrew.
And I don't know
why they're still going
with "alleged connections"
to Epstein there,
while also running a photo
that makes them look
like the two closest friends
I've ever seen.
It looks like they're brainstorming
a new podcast.
It looks
like Andrew's soft launching,
"Would it be crazy
if we moved in together?"
I'm just saying,
maybe drop the "alleged" part
when you're dealing with two guys
that look so close
they could finish each other's
prison sentences.
And if you're thinking, "Well, what
was the new revelation that did it?"
"Was it the grotesque new photo
of Andrew on all fours"
"over a young woman?"
Incredibly, no. It was apparently this.
The arrest reportedly linked
to emails released
by the U.S. Department of Justice
as part of the Epstein files
that show Andrew forwarding emails
to Epstein while he was trade envoy.
The emails, some dated in 2010,
after Epstein had been convicted
of soliciting sex from a minor,
show Andrew forwarding
British government files
from his trips to places
like Hong Kong and Vietnam.
Yeah, they got him
on forwarding documents,
which is a little underwhelming.
Though, to be honest, when it comes
to bringing down monsters,
I don't really care if it's for
a boring computer crime,
the same way I'm not that mad
if what finally ends a toddler
throwing a tantrum is a cardboard box.
The method doesn't matter,
what's important is
you have been stopped.
Andrew has repeatedly denied all
wrongdoing and has been released,
although that does not mean
he's been found not guilty.
All we really have to go on right now
is this fantastic picture of him
leaving custody.
And you can draw
your own conclusions there.
Reasonable people can disagree
on whether this makes him
look guilty or dead.
And I've got to say, even him being
taken into custody this week
must've been gratifying for some,
including anyone
who's ever had to work for him.
To hear at least one former officer
who was assigned to guard Andrew,
he wasn't the greatest
to be around.
Did Prince Andrew have
a nickname at that time?
His official code, so, if he
was to come into the palace,
his call sign was purple four one.
But he did have a nickname.
But it's a bit rude
for me to tell you.
I'll tell you, but you're not
gonna be able to air it.
- You want me to tell you?
- Yeah.
He was called The Cunt.
Yeah!
According to that guy, that was
Andrew's unofficial nickname.
And it's a little weird he was
so wary of saying that word on TV,
given he was appearing
on Australia's "60 Minutes".
And Australians say "cunt"
all the time.
I'm pretty sure Bluey's
said it at least three times.
But it's not just codename Cunt
here facing consequences.
Take Peter Mandelson, the U.K.'s
former ambassador to D.C.
He's also under police investigation
for forwarding government emails
to Epstein, something he's denied.
And there are also questions about
how close they were,
especially given the sheer number
of photos of them together,
including this recently released one
of him in his underwear,
seemingly in Epstein's apartment.
And the very fact Prime Minister
Keir Starmer appointed Mandelson
ambassador in the first place
is now a major scandal.
His chief of staff and communications
director have resigned.
And it may not stop there.
The fallout is now directly
threatening the prime minister.
Keir Starmer has admitted
to Parliament
he knew of Mandelson's past
association with Epstein,
but that he had not been told
the truth
about the extent of the relationship.
The admission has
sparked a furious backlash,
including from members
of Starmer's own party,
who are openly questioning
his judgment and his leadership.
Right, because that shows
terrible judgment.
A crucial part of leadership is who
you pick to be on your team.
If the Raiders
decided at this year's NFL draft
to use their number one pick to
select Roman Polanski,
everyone involved in that decision
should probably be fired.
But here in the U.S., there's been
a notable lack of consequences
for several high-profile figures
who've appeared in the files.
Most notably,
this guy is still president.
But also, his commerce
secretary, Howard Lutnick,
Epstein's former next-door
neighbor, by the way,
has come under scrutiny.
Because he previously said
he met Epstein only once in 2005
and was so revolted, he declared,
"I will never be in the room with
that disgusting person ever again."
But new documents reveal not
only were they in touch after that,
Lutnick visited Epstein's island,
and he tried to justify like this.
I did have lunch with him
as I was on a boat going across
on a family vacation.
My wife was with me, as were my four
children and nannies.
We were on family vacation.
We were not a part,
to suggest there was anything
untoward about that in 2012,
I don't recall why we did it,
but we did.
To be clear, there was a lot untoward
about meeting Epstein in 2012.
He'd left jail three years earlier
as a sex offender,
and it was widely known what
kind of guy he was at that time.
And it's not a great look that it seems
the end of Lutnick's sentence,
"I will never be in a room with
that disgusting person again",
was apparently, "Unless, that is,
I can bring mah kids!"
But Lutnick is still in his job!
As, by the way, is Peter Attia,
who CBS News had only just hired
as part of their new roster
of contributors
when the files were released,
and the details about him
in there aren't great.
The celebrity longevity influencer
appears in the files
more than 1.700 times.
In 2015, Attia wrote,
"The biggest problem with
becoming friends with you?"
"The life you lead is so outrageous,
and yet I cannot tell a soul."
And that is not close
to the worst of it.
'Cause Attia also apparently wrote
to Epstein's assistant, saying,
"I go into JE withdrawal when
I don't see him," and wrote
to Epstein directly, saying
that, and I quote,
"Pussy is, indeed, low carb. Awaiting
results on gluten content, though."
Attia's apologized for those emails,
and has stepped down
as chief science officer of the
protein bar company David
following these revelations,
but incredibly, as of taping,
CBS News still seems to be
keeping him on as a contributor.
And it is wild that CBS News
somehow has lower standards
than a protein bar company
that markets their products
like this, and also like this.
And I'm not sure who at the
company thought their bars
needed to be "'80s horny"
but I hope they're gone, too.
I'm not saying Attia or
Lutnick have committed crimes.
But it is clear just how comfortable
far too many people were
looking past
Epstein's heinous actions.
And given the lack
of accountability in all this,
there's at least some
satisfaction in knowing
just how nervous some powerful
men must be feeling right now,
a nervousness that's kind
of hard to put into words,
but luckily, I think this picture
sums it up pretty well.
And now, this.
And Now: People on TV
Celebrate National Drink Wine Day.
Today is…
National Drink Wine Day!
It is recommended, friends,
to drink in moderation.
So, one glass that's this big.
It's Ash Wednesday. I'm Catholic.
They serve wine at mass.
Because of Lent,
make sure you eat fish today.
So, EP Micah hooked me up.
I don't really know if this
is a hookup guys,
but he hooked me up
with some fish sticks
and some generic wines.
It is Ash Wednesday. I think
this is interesting,
that it coincides
with National Drink Wine Day.
- Kind of is, isn't it?
- Is it?
- This is nice rosé for the day.
- How is it?
It's very good.
- National Wine Day, it is good.
- Tastes different at 6:45 AM.
Moving on. Our main story
tonight concerns Twitter,
or, as it's been called since Elon Musk
purchased it a few years ago, Twitter.
It's a site with exactly one good
account left: Gerald Stratford,
a retired British man who delights
followers with his giant vegetables.
I've just cut this big cabbage.
It's a PB for me.
I haven't got any scales big
enough to weigh it.
But I'm not worried about that,
it's a beautiful specimen.
Yeah, it is, Gerald!
And I for one am glad
that you cut that cabbage!
To be completely honest,
I haven't been this jazzed
to see a cabbage broken in half
since my wedding night.
Twitter has clearly changed
significantly in recent years,
and you can pinpoint
the moment that started,
because it's the day in October 2022,
when Elon tweeted a video
of himself carrying a sink
into Twitter headquarters, writing,
"Let that sink in", a joke
so funny I'm still laughing right now.
And he quickly made it clear that
the company was going to be different.
He changed Twitter's name to X,
announced an "extremely
hardcore" cultural reset,
and by his count, said he'd cut
about 80% of Twitter's staff.
And to hear Elon tell it,
he did this to protect free speech
and correct for what conservatives
considered a left-wing bias.
In fact, as far as he was
concerned,
nothing less than the fate
of the world was at stake.
The reason for acquiring
Twitter is because it was…
It was causing destruction
at a civilizational level.
You know, like Wormtongue
from "Lord of the Rings",
where he would just sort
of, like, whisper these, you know,
terrible things to the king.
So, the king would believe these
things that weren't true.
And they were pushing a nihilistic,
anti-civilizational
mind virus to the world.
Okay, for the record,
Twitter's not a good analogue
for Wormtongue at all, and I'm
guessing I don't need to explain why,
given the Venn diagram between
"viewers of this show"
and "people familiar with second-tier
'Lord of the Rings' characters"
is, I'm pretty sure,
a single circle-as round,
in fact, as the outermost
wall of Minas Tirith.
But what Elon's embrace of
so-called "free speech"
has actually resulted in
is much darker.
One study found a 50% increase
in posts containing hate speech.
And recently, you may've heard
about the platform's struggles
with "Grok's image editing tool,
which has allowed users
to create digitally altered,
sexualized photos of real people,
including minors."
And look, no one is saying Twitter
was perfect before Elon arrived.
It helped platform a lot of ugliness,
including but not limited to
our first shitposter president.
But it is genuinely worse now.
And you might think you already
know how bad it is,
or that it doesn't matter to you
because you're no longer on it.
But I promise, it's actually
worse than you think,
for reasons you may not know,
and in ways that will
unfortunately impact all of us.
So given that, tonight,
let's talk about Twitter.
And let's start with some of the most
visible changes Elon's made.
One of his first involved
the site's verification system,
which used to assign a blue
checkmark to anyone well-known enough
that they might need an official sign
that they were who they said they were.
Elon replaced that with a system
where anyone could get a blue check
if they simply became a premium user
who paid 8 dollars a month.
And that led to instant,
albeit very funny, chaos.
All of a sudden, scrollers saw
LeBron James asking for a trade,
oil company British Petroleum
admitting it killed the planet,
and drug manufacturer Eli Lilly
offering insulin for free.
It's true, fake accounts
sprung up all over the place.
Fake George Bush said
he missed killing Iraqis,
to which Fake Tony Blair
said, "Same TBH".
Fake OJ Simpson said,
"Not gonna lie, I did that shit."
And a fake American
Girl doll account said,
"Felicity owned slaves," continuing,
"I'm not even lying. Look it up."
Now, Elon eventually added
new grey and gold checkmarks
to help verify
some official accounts.
And while I'm not sure exactly
which fake tweet made him do that,
if I had to guess, it'd be this one
from a fake Tesla account that said,
"Our cars do not respect school zone
speed limits. Fuck them kids."
So, already, the site was
much less reliable,
because it was harder
to tell who was trustworthy.
But on top of that,
Elon took an axe to the site's
ability to deal with harmful content
by, among other things, slashing
its global trust and safety staff,
including reducing its full-time
content moderators by over 50%.
He also started restoring a lot
of accounts that had been banned
for violating the platform's policies
on things like abusive behavior
and inciting violence.
He memorably
brought back this guy,
as well as Alex Jones,
Andrew Tate, Nick Fuentes,
and U.K. anti-immigrant
crusader Tommy Robinson,
which I believe is known as
a "nightmare anything rotation".
And that was just the beginning.
Twitter accounts belonging to
far-right activists and QAnon theorists
have been reinstated according
to data reviewed by NBC News.
Hundreds of formerly banned users
now back on the platform
after Musk's Thanksgiving tweet
that "amnesty begins next week."
Yeah, he basically reinstated
a bunch of accounts,
including white supremacists,
and announced it on Thanksgiving.
Which, when you think about it,
is actually pretty thematically
appropriate for the holiday.
And when you take all of that
together, it is no wonder
the site became a fertile breeding
ground for hatred and misinformation,
and much less reliable when it came
to tracking breaking news.
One of the first clear signs of that
came in the wake of
the October 7th attacks in Israel.
Previously, at a moment like that,
people might look to Twitter
for information from journalists
and other credible people on the scene.
But a ton of misinformation
circulated there,
often from accounts boasting
misleading blue checks.
This video of a grieving boy
supposedly from Gaza went viral,
even though it was from at least
nine years earlier and taken in Syria.
And this clip supposedly
of Israeli rockets exploding
was actually from
a military simulation video game.
The account that posted
that, by the way,
conveniently titled Israel Mossad,
had gone from fewer
than 1.000 followers
when it first acquired
a blue check in September 2023,
to more than 230.000.
And that wasn't the only big change.
Twitter also started paying so-called
"creators" on the site.
Currently, if you're a premium user,
meaning you pay for a blue check,
you can get paid for your posts,
and your revenue is dependent
on how many other premium users
reply to, repost
and like your content.
And that has served some users
pretty well, like this guy,
who posted as "Freedom Uncut
Online," and was on Twitter a lot.
He says he spends up to 16 hours
a day on X,
sharing AI-generated
pictures like these and streaming.
While some of these
posts are obviously satirical,
others are less fantastical.
It's the more provocative content
that gets views, he tells me.
It's kind of interesting,
because…
The balance between free speech
and saying stuff that you know
is either untrue or you just say
it in a very brash way
to egg people on, is an
interesting era that we're in.
I know people that are
making…
The pay period's
every two weeks,
and I know people that are in
the thousand-plus range.
It is not the most
important thing there,
but it is genuinely incredible
to me that people can make money
posting "Matrix" memes of Trump
that read, "I can dodge bullets,"
not least because that's something,
and not to be a fact bitch here,
Trump didn't entirely do, if we're
just going to be sticklers about it.
And look, over 1.000 dollars
every two weeks
is clearly a good payday just
for posting.
Usually,
to make that kind of money online,
you need to be running
a crypto scam or selling feet pics,
and even that is only realistic
for those of us who happen
to be born with irresistible feet.
I would show you, but honey,
I don't do that for free.
And some accounts,
particularly on the far right,
have even made more, like
the anonymous "End Wokeness",
which once tweeted,
"Elon Musk wasn't kidding."
"Content monetization is real",
with a screenshot showing
earnings of over 10.000 dollars.
Now, I should say, most
accounts don't make that much.
But even relatively small amounts
can be an incentive
if, say, you live in another country,
where the cost of living is lower.
That may help explain the somewhat
awkward revelations from last year,
when Twitter suddenly allowed people
to see accounts' location information.
The X account MAGA Nation,
with nearly 400.000 followers,
boasts itself as standing strong with
President Trump and America first,
with post after post
backing Trump.
But one click shows it's based
in Eastern Europe.
Even President Trump himself
reposting several accounts
that are not from the United States
on his Truth Social platform,
like this account called
Commentary Donald Trump,
posting about whether
foreign-born citizens
should be barred from
running for office,
the account itself based in Africa.
Yeah, and that is not all, an account
called UltraMAGA Trump 2028,
claiming to be based in D.C.,
was also listed as being in Africa,
the account MAGA Nadine
was based in Morocco,
and the user at-American
was based in Pakistan.
Which is pretty surprising.
Finding out an account
called "at-American"
is based outside the U.S.
is kind of like finding out
that the person who runs Deuxmoi
is David Attenborough.
Sure, it's not illegal, and I guess
maybe the passion could be real,
but it certainly changes
how I think about things.
The point is, there is
an ecosystem of people,
both here and abroad,
who've discovered you can make money
off of pissed Americans staring
at their phones.
And to be clear: none of the
changes I've mentioned so far
involved secret tweaks
to Twitter's algorithm,
they just involved
changing who could post,
and what their incentives were.
As for what's happened behind
the scenes, that is harder to say.
Though some
who've run experiments on the site
have made
some troubling discoveries.
Sky News created a number of accounts
emulating British Twitter users.
Three were left-wing users,
three were right-wing,
and three were neutral, designed
to show no interest in politics.
When they tracked the content each
was pushed by Twitter's algorithm,
their findings were striking.
The result was that every account,
no matter their political orientation,
was fed a glut
of right-wing content.
Remember our left-wing users.
This shows what they saw
on the platform.
More than 40% came
from right wing accounts.
Compare that
to our right-wing users,
and look, they saw much less
left-wing content,
and a lot of right-wing content.
And then the neutral users,
who we designed not to show
any interest in politics.
They saw twice as much right-wing
content in the pink here
than they did left-wing
in yellow.
And that clearly suggests
that something is up,
even if we don't know the exact
algorithm changes that were made.
It's like when a Redditor found
that, statistically,
James Harden's poor performance
during away games
correlates with them happening in
cities with highly rated strip clubs.
Now, can we make concrete
statements about causality there?
Of course we can't. But the data
is making some loud suggestions.
Now, I have to say, X has announced
a new update to Twitter's algorithm,
which they've described
as "purely" AI-led.
Although, given Elon has a history
of trying to make his AI chatbot, Grok,
less "woke," leading to it, at one
point, calling itself "MechaHitler",
I'm not sure
how reassuring that is.
Elon's definitely shown a willingness
to tweak Twitter's algorithm
to drive certain kinds of content,
and sometimes for truly
embarrassing reasons.
There's a notorious incident involving
him going to the Super Bowl in 2023
and having a problem
with one of his tweets.
And I'll let this reporter
fill you in.
He tweets out basically his support
for the Philadelphia Eagles.
I think his tweet was something
like, "Go Eagles",
with a few American flags on it.
Biden, around the same time,
posts a somewhat similar tweet.
"Fly, Eagles, fly," and it's a
video of his wife, Jill Biden,
who's walking
with an Eagles jersey on.
The game goes on. Elon Musk
checks his phone. Weird.
It looks like Joe Biden,
who he's called "a damp sock
puppet in human form",
is doing much better than he is
in terms of engagement
on this very similar tweet.
At 2:36 AM, she says an
urgent message went out,
and roughly 80 engineers
were pulled into work.
And they're tasked with
fixing the issues with the algorithm.
That's true. Elon's tweet got less
engagement than Biden's did,
so 80 engineers were called
in at 2:00 in the morning,
and told, "This is high urgency."
And of course his tweet flopped.
It was terrible.
First, don't use American flags
when eagle emojis exist.
But also, "Eagles"?
Why call them by their
government name? Just post,
"Go Birds, eagle emojis,"
"Jalen Hurts can give
me a tush push any day!"
And you'd have cracked
a million likes instantly.
Now, reporters later learned that,
"after Musk threatened to fire
his remaining engineers,"
they built a system designed
to ensure that he, and he alone,
benefited from previously unheard
of promotion of his tweets
to the entire user base.
Which seems to be happening.
As basically whatever Elon's tweeting
about, people see it in their feeds.
When Fortune conducted
an experiment
to gauge how prevalent Musk
was on Twitter,
they set up a dozen
different test accounts,
and in approximately 90%
of the sessions they conducted,
a post from Musk appeared
at least once in the timeline,
usually much more often.
And even clicking "not interested
in Elon Musk" didn't change things.
In fact, after one test account
clicked exactly that,
posts from him
more than doubled.
At this point, it seems like
there's only one option
if you never want to hear
anything from Elon Musk,
and that's to be
his coolest child.
And Twitter thumbing the scale
toward Elon's interest is bad
for multiple reasons,
not limited to his god-awful jokes,
his history of invoking extreme ideas,
like the antisemitic great
replacement theory,
and the fact he was apparently
a driver of U.S. election
misinformation in 2024.
But perhaps the biggest
cause for concern
is the fact our current
government is troublingly dependent
on Elon's platform.
The Trump administration
is painfully online,
and particularly on Twitter.
JD Vance has said that
he's a "Grok guy",
Kash Patel's repeatedly
fumbled FBI investigations
by prematurely announcing
suspects on Twitter,
and this photo
of the makeshift Situation Room
during the U.S. military
operation in Venezuela
showed a Twitter feed with
"Venezuela" in the search bar.
And I'm not sure anything could
inspire less confidence than that,
other than Google results for,
"Who is Venezuela?"
And at best, the consequences
of doing this
are that the government just ends up
doing dumb stuff,
like when someone on Twitter
seemed to convince Elon
that the "gold inside Fort Knox
might be missing."
The Washington Post
traced it back to this tweet,
suggesting he take a look
to make sure it was still there.
Musk replied,
"Surely it's reviewed every year?"
to which the account
responded, "It should be. It isn't."
Just two days later, Musk tweeted,
"It would be cool to do a live video
walk through of Fort Knox."
And not long after,
this came out of the mouth
of the president of the United States.
We're actually going to Fort Knox
to see if the gold is there.
Because maybe somebody stole
the gold. Tons of gold.
Okay. Well, let us know,
I guess!
Honestly, I know it's probably
not a great use of taxpayer money,
but I think I'd be okay if
he spent the rest of his presidency
trying to solve low-stakes
mysteries he found on Twitter.
Visiting Fort Knox because
someone said the gold might be missing
or pawing around in the White House
garden with a magnifying glass
because Kourtney Kardashian once
tweeted, "Do ants have dicks?"
It wouldn't be
the worst use of his time!
Anything that keeps him busy,
really.
But wild gold chases
are the best-case scenario here.
Because we've talked before about
how misinformation on Twitter
led to actual spending cuts during
Elon's time at DOGE.
But it goes well beyond that.
A nominee for a senior administration
post recently told the New Yorker,
"If we have something that's popular
in right-wing Twitter,"
"the White House is acting
on it 90-plus percent of the time."
And Trump appointees
like Harmeet Dhillon,
the assistant attorney general
for civil rights,
will sometimes openly brag about
taking work cues from social media.
I have a big social media following
from before I joined the DOJ,
about 1.5 million-plus
followers online.
It is a way to find information.
Today, I don't actually
watch television very much.
I don't have the TV on
in the background,
because TV is like 12 to 24
hours behind what's really happening.
And when the modern-day
journalist heroes,
who are the Nick Shirleys,
and you know, the Matt Taibbis,
and some of these others
who, you know, right or left,
they're the ones who are getting
the leads
and sharing
the stories in real time,
those are the ones
I pay attention to.
And where we get
our attention on something…
Or Libs of TikTok is also
a great source for some of our issues
involving schools
or employment.
We do open up investigations
based on internet leads.
And I am proud of that.
Okay, first, bragging about
your Twitter followers
is just embarrassing,
and it gets even worse
when you learn that last
December, Dhillon tweeted,
"I've been stuck at pretty much
the same level of followers"
"on this account since
I started my government job."
"What, am I chopped
liver over here?"
"What kind of content do my folks
want to see more of to like and share?"
To which I'd respond, I guess
I'd love to see a resignation letter,
if you're taking requests.
But also, it's a little hard
to hear her complain about
a lack of followers,
given she routinely pumps out
duds like this recent one,
"On the road. Timeline cleanse
knitting after a day of hard work."
"Cashmere hat for a man."
And this one, also about
a hat, but in which she throws in
the R-slur for good measure.
And what the fuck is that?
That is a hard unfollow for me
for the assistant attorney
general for civil rights.
But there are obvious issues
with the government taking cues
from accounts that Dhillon
just described,
because some are posting deeply
irresponsible rage bait.
Take a guy she mentioned
there, Nick Shirley.
He's the 23-year-old right-wing
influencer
behind a viral "investigation" of
Minnesota day cares in December.
They were actually playing a clip
of it during her interview there.
Shirley posted it on YouTube first,
but it quickly went viral on Twitter,
where it's so far garnered over
140 million views.
And it's worth knowing just
how flimsy it was.
For context, allegations of social
services fraud in Minnesota,
some of it by Somali Americans,
"have been the subject"
"of federal investigations and
media coverage for years" now.
Dozens of people have already
been convicted as a result,
with some investigations
still ongoing.
Still, Nick Shirley decided to do some
"investigating" of his own,
by showing up at day cares,
demanding to see proof kids went there,
and in some instances,
asking if he could enroll
his nonexistent child.
When he wasn't able to, he
concluded the businesses were fronts.
It was a truly ridiculous stunt,
as he sort of acknowledged
when pressed on it
by an actual reporter.
But surely you don't think
a day care should just be unlocked?
You shouldn't be able to
just walk into a day care.
- There should be a reception.
- No. The every-day care is locked.
Their doors are locked.
You bring up a fair point.
But then, why can't they give me
information on how to enroll a child?
First, I love the slight pause there
after Shirley was told
day cares are not typically
open to strangers with cameras.
Just the slow realization
that a locked door
is one of the basic things
every day care should have,
along with crayons, interlocking
foam tiles, tiny tables and chairs,
and so many germs, every part
of your insides will be coated
with phlegm
for the next two years straight.
That is what day cares are!
But also, if you really want the latest
right-wing rallying cry to be
"day cares should have a guest
reception for random men"
"without children who just want to
poke around and film some shit",
I'd love to see how that
turns out for you.
Now, you won't be surprised
to learn that state investigators
conducted compliance checks
after Shirley's videos went viral,
and found that the day cares he visited
were "operating as expected"
and that kids were present at all
sites except for one,
and that is only because it wasn't
yet open for families for the day
when inspectors arrived.
But the thing is,
it was already too late,
because Elon absolutely
loved that dumb video.
He tweeted, retweeted,
and engaged with a truly
absurd number of posts about it,
or the claims that it made, in the
days after the video went online.
And unsurprisingly, the Trump
administration took notice.
The day after it was posted,
JD Vance tweeted about it,
saying it was "more useful
journalism than any of the winners"
"of the 2024 Pulitzer Prizes",
which, given one of them focused
on "tactics authoritarian regimes use
to repress dissent in the digital age,"
feels a bit on the nose.
Two days after that, Kristi Noem
posted a clip of ICE agents
apparently conducting
a "massive investigation"
into childcare fraud
in Minneapolis.
And the next day, Trump's
then-deputy secretary at HHS
posted on Twitter,
tagging Nick Shirley,
and including this video,
that was then retweeted by HHS.
Intrepid journalists have made
shocking and credible allegations
of extensive fraud in
Minnesota's childcare programs.
We believe the state of Minnesota
has allowed scammers
and fake day cares to siphon
millions of taxpayer dollars
over the past decade.
I know it is distracting,
because that man is hot as shit,
but if you can listen to his words
through the smoke show going on there,
they're actually very worrying.
In that post, they announced
they'd frozen funding to Minnesota,
and then quickly
tried expanding that
to encompass
five Democratic-run states.
And within two weeks, the
Trump administration sent
thousands of agents to Minnesota
to crack down on illegal immigration.
I don't think it's a stretch to say
that a lot of the shit
you saw in Minnesota
was caused, at least in part,
by this fucking tweet.
The point here is, Twitter has become
a sewer of misinformation,
with the power to bring about
troubling real-world impacts.
And to be clear, this is now
a problem that goes far beyond
this administration,
or this country.
Because to see just how dangerous
what Elon's built can be,
we actually have to
look at England.
In 2024, in a town called Southport,
three young girls were killed
in a knife attack. It was horrific.
In the immediate aftermath,
there was almost no public information
available about the attacker,
but nevertheless, a Twitter
account called "Europe Invasion",
known to publish anti-immigrant
and Islamophobic content,
baselessly suggested the suspect
was a Muslim immigrant.
By the time the killer was identified
as a non-Muslim British citizen
born to parents from Rwanda,
it was already too late,
as mobs were forming,
and after a vigil for the victims,
violence broke out near
a local mosque,
with people throwing bricks,
bottles, and other missiles at it.
And the imam there
still seems stunned
by the speed with which
it all accelerated.
We start getting messages
from friends and neighbors,
and saying there is a lot of people
accusing the attacker
of being a Muslim.
And then it's moving from
there, they said…
He is coming to this mosque.
And then it moved from there
very quickly.
We're talking
about within half an hour,
it became that we coerced him
into doing what he did.
Did you ever expect that hatred
would end up outside your mosque?
Never.
That is terrible. And given the killer
wasn't a member of that mosque,
or indeed, Muslim, of course you
wouldn't expect a hate mob to show up.
It makes literally as much sense
as a mob showing up at a Taco Bell
to protest the results
of an Orlando Magic game.
Hey, guys! Those two things
are unrelated,
you got some bad intel, go home,
you fucking idiots!
But from there, the riots
spread nationwide,
with mobs targeting mosques
and hotels housing asylum seekers,
and leading to what's been called
"the worst unrest the U.K. has seen
in more than a decade."
And it was significantly
fueled by Twitter,
with false or unfounded claims
about the Southport attacker
getting 155 million impressions
in the days after the attack.
And when the police there
eventually made arrests
for inciting racial hatred,
one of the men convicted happened
to be earning 1.400 pounds a month
from his activities on the site.
And it is hard to deny Twitter's
role as, at the very least,
an accelerant.
Two of the major voices
spreading dangerous misinformation
were Andrew Tate and Tommy
Robinson, who, remember,
Elon reinstated to the platform.
And Elon himself was acting
as a sort of amplifier,
to the point that he replied
to one post about the attacks with,
"Civil war is inevitable."
And it's not like some
of the key participants
have denied how critical
Twitter's role has been.
Robinson's far-right movement
picked up significant steam
in the wake of Southport, and here
he is, not long after the riots,
giving credit
where he feels it's due.
Look what we've achieved
in six months.
We've gone from…
Through the roof, thanks to Elon Musk,
built a cult movement, ready,
inspired many.
And we're ready.
Yeah, not great!
And if that wasn't bad enough,
Robinson hosted an anti-immigration
"Unite the Kingdom" rally in London,
and you'll never guess who he
managed to get as a special guest.
The huge crowds in Westminster
didn't turn out just for Robinson.
They were also
chanting someone else's name.
Elon Musk,
joining in from America.
Whether you choose violence
or not, violence is coming to you.
You either fight back or you die.
Okay, saying "fight back
or die" to that crowd
is so malevolent I can
barely wrap my head around it.
And I've got to say, what he's
doing there sure does seem
like a strong case of,
if I may quote Elon himself,
someone whispering terrible
things, things that weren't true,
and then pushing a nihilistic,
anti-civilizational mind virus
to the world.
It is Wormtongue-coded at
least, is what I'm saying here.
And look, this is typically where
I'd trot out my hit catchphrase,
"What can we do?". You know it,
people go crazy when I say it,
it's on T-shirts now, and I
can't walk down the street
without people begging me
to say it to them.
But right now, unfortunately,
there's not much we can push for
by way of solutions.
The fact is, a massive media
platform has been shaped
in the image of its poisonous owner,
and it doesn't seem
like Elon's gonna see the error
of his ways any time soon,
given his brain seems to be
thoroughly cooked
by the garbage he consumes
on his own site.
To be honest, he still doesn't seem
to have a coherent vision
of exactly what Twitter should be,
because just watch this recent
interview where he offers
a pretty grand vision for it,
but then gets tripped up
by the most basic follow-up
question imaginable.
And I promise this answer
is so much worse
than you are prepared for.
I just want to really have a global
platform that brings together…
It becomes as close to a collective
consciousness of humanity as possible.
And why is that important, Elon?
Collective consciousness?
To have one platform?
Why is that important?
I guess it's… You could
say, like, why…
If you consider humans
are composed
of around 30 to 40 trillion cells,
and, you know, there's trillions
of synapses in your mind.
The why of it, I guess,
is so we can increase
our understanding…
Increase our understanding
of the universe.
You know, at first,
I thought that was embarrassing,
what with the full 10 seconds
where Elon's brain seemed to buffer
like it's loading a video on AOL
in 1999,
but then I saw the little drawing
labeled "30 to 40 trillion cells",
and it all totally made sense.
So, it seems like the odds of Elon
fixing this are pretty slim.
Meaning all we can really control
is how we each interact with Twitter.
And I know that there are some
who think it's important to stay on it
to be part of "the town square",
although, given that town square
now resembles, if anything,
this…
I'm not sure much good-faith
debate is taking place there.
My personal advice is
not to post on it at all.
I haven't done that
in over a year,
although I will be going back there
tomorrow to post a link to this piece,
before going silent again
and prioritizing my OnlyFans.
I know people have their own
reasons for staying on Twitter.
Though for what it's worth,
a lot of what it does can be
replicated elsewhere.
If you want to stay in touch
with friends or contacts,
maybe try and connect
with them somewhere else.
If you spend most of your time
sending your significant other
memes and funny posts,
there are other sites
where you can find those,
but also,
maybe put your phone down
and take your wife out to dinner.
It's been a long time since you
went out without the kids.
And if you just
want to watch arguments,
may I recommend
the "Real Housewives" franchises,
the Shakespeare of the modern age.
All I'll say is, there are certain
areas, like news in particular,
where Twitter is
now worse than useless.
In fact, for breaking news,
it is an active liability,
as people routinely push out false
information in the wake of tragedies
and crises, often for money,
and there don't seem to be many
guardrails to stop them.
All of which is really a long way
of saying that the Twitter
that we may've once relied on
and the Twitter that was fun
and occasionally useful
is just well and truly gone.
And collectively,
while it might be sad,
it might be past time
for all of us to,
if I may borrow a truly
poisoned phrase,
let that sink in.
That's our show, thanks so much
for watching, we'll see you next week!
Good night!
How about this for a parsnip?
Straight out of my raised bed.
The raised bed is from there,
until there.
And the parsnip has gone
from top to bottom.
Will enjoy that today.
It's beautiful, we love parsnip
în lots of different ways.
Cheers!