科技巨头封禁特朗普：第一修正案与开放互联网的后果

David Sacks (00:00:00): Hey, everyone. Hey, everyone. Welcome to the all in pop. Speaker 2 (00:00:06): You're -- Dastrius. Your illustrious moderator, David Sacks (00:00:09): Jason Calacanis, has been purged. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:00:13): Canceled? David Sacks (00:00:14): He's been canceled. We canceled him for his constant interruptions and low IQ comments. We decided that the minimal IQ required to be on this part of the you know, a 140 150. He did not make the cut. And so now it is just me to chop and Friedberg. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:00:38): He is Jason is away. He is actively implementing our jerkoff to win strategy to solve the pandemic and free speech. Jason Calacanis (00:00:51): Rainman David Sachs. Speaker 2 (00:00:55): And I said We open source it to Jason Calacanis (00:01:04): Hey, everybody. Hey, everybody. It is an emergency podcast episode David Sacks (00:01:08): 16. Jason Calacanis (00:01:10): Hit number 2 in the rankings on the Apple Itunes Podcasting Store. Clearly, we hit a nerve. It's been an an insane week, and the dictate dictated that he was not satisfied with doing our podcast once every 2 weeks. And so here we are on a Sunday. the queen of Kinois, Rain Man himself, David Sachs, and the Speaker 2 (00:01:35): dictator chopping it up Jason Calacanis (00:01:35): for you, the loyal, confused, angry, infuriated audience of all in. It's the craziest week of our lives. David Sacks (00:01:46): Jason, plea please don't ascribe to the audience the characteristics that describe yourself. Jason Calacanis (00:01:52): Okay. This has been a crazy David Sacks (00:01:56): 72 Jason Calacanis (00:01:56): hours. Can anybody remember a a week that has been more crazy in their life with the exception, I guess 9:11, the financial crisis. I'm trying to think of this level of crazy David Friedberg (00:02:08): And I think I think we should start with what happened after the last all in podcast between you and Saks over text We should get it all out there. We should share it publicly. And I think we'll -- No. I think -- Yeah. David Sacks (00:02:20): -- Speaker 2 (00:02:20): I think Chamath Palihapitiya (00:02:20): I think -- No. We should. David Friedberg (00:02:21): I think it's worth doing to we we talked about this before you joined us. And and we're we're Timoth and I are having an intervention. And, you know, I I I'm gonna say something real quick. I think it's worth highlighting that one of the things that I think we have the opportunity to do as a group is to kind of elevate the conversation a bit and not frame things as being black and white. and not frame them as being 1 or 0 or partisan or left or right. And everyone on this in this conversation has nuanced opinions about a lot of different topics And when you sum up all those opinions, it doesn't define a left or a right person or a Democrat or Republican. I think that's what makes us you know, a a compelling and interesting group to talk to. Sachs has been characterized as the Trump guy. He took offense to that. And in particular, the heated conversation you guys had last time. And I do think it's worth kinda sharing that with everyone and letting you guys reconcile publicly -- Yeah. -- have have a David Sacks (00:03:16): backlog. Yeah. David Friedberg (00:03:17): And and and re reframe kind of how we talk about each other and how so that we can kind of set a bit of an example on on how to do this well. Jason Calacanis (00:03:24): I can start. You can start, David. David Sacks (00:03:26): I'll I'll I'll I'll start because I don't wanna have the objection. You're the aggrieved? Yeah. I mean, it's so look. I I think that that Jaykow does an amazing job monitoring the pod, and it's a difficult job. And, you know, the the the so I so I don't wanna you know, this is not something I'm trying to blame him for. But I do have an objection to being labeled in a certain way. I think anybody would. You know, we we don't wanna be misconstrued, and and we wanna be able to characterize our own views. We don't wanna be labeled in a certain way. Now I think Jason has sort of branded me as a Trump guy because, frankly, it's amusing to him. I think he's mainly trolling me. but the audience doesn't necessarily understand that. I mean, if you go back and look at my Twitter feed or my blogs, I haven't written about Trump for years. I mean, I I haven't said anything really about it. That's not my agenda. You know? And I think it it I I don't have a pro trumpet agenda, but I also don't have a pro resistance agenda. I've described my position as anti hysteria. Sometimes that means criticizing Trump like it did in the last pod. Sometimes it means criticizing the resistance. So I just don't like being labeled a certain way, and I think Jason and I sort of, you know, kinda resolve this. You know, if I were to label my politics, just you know, Jason calls me the conservative. I think that's more accurate, but the question is, you know, what am I conserving exactly? And I would describe myself more as, like, a 1960 style liberal. You know, I'm a believer in free speech, you know, ACLU style, believer in King's dream of a color by society. You know, if, you know, I'm against all these you know, foreign wars and interventions. If I had been around the 19 sixties, I would have been protesting Vietnam. That's kinda more where I'm coming from. And I guess the reason I'm a conservative now is because the political debate has moved so far away from that. David Sacks (00:05:16): But if I'm trying to conserve anything, it's really the Liberal victories of the 19 sixties. So in any event, I I don't think that qualifies me in any way as a as a as a trumper per se. And I just don't want, you know, Jason making jokes to somehow have the audience get the wrong idea because I wanna be heard, and I know Trump's an extremely polarizing figure. And the second you tell somebody you're frankly pro or con Trump, the other half just doesn't even stop doesn't even wanna listen to you. And so my my views are more complicated than that. Jason Calacanis (00:05:51): Okay. Well, thanks to everybody for tuning in to the all in. It's it's been amazing episode 7 team. Speaker 2 (00:05:58): There are Jason Calacanis (00:05:58): many podcasts who are sponsors. Listen. I think what makes this podcast great is the diversity of opinion and the respect that we show for each other. If my breaking chops, which is, as everybody knows here, my superpower in life and to along with talking, has pigeonholed you into being something you're not or if you felt I've taken a cheap shot at you in any way. I apologize and it was not my intent. My intent is to keep the conversation flowing, to entertain the audience certainly, but not at anybody's expense, David. And certainly not yours because do consider you, one of the best friends I've had in my life, and one of the most supportive people in my life, and then anything we all feel that way about each other, that we go to bat for each other. I do think that this highlights and dovetails with what we and I've given it a lot of thought actually. I've really spent since the last podcast, a lot of time thinking about your position, David, and where you're coming from. And then also where the people who maybe, you know, you maybe agreed with some of Trump's victories and, certainly, you're a conservative. I don't know if you voted for him or not or if you're willing to say if you did. I'll put that aside for a moment. But I do think that we're all seeing in our families, in our lives, and now as a nation, what is the off ramp here to the people who supported Trump up until this coup attempt and this ugliness. And then how do we reconcile it? Right? That is The grand reconciliation here is the thing that has me very concerned because we're a microcosm, David. You and I are you know, unbelievably close friends for a very long period of time and we struggle with, I think, Trump. Trump is, as I was saying in our group chat earlier, it's like the trolley car problem. Like, people will be pulling up how do you deal with Trump as the example of, you know, what do you do with the trolley car? You know, it's gonna kill one person or 5 and Do you you know, the brakes broke and kinda situation. Jason Calacanis (00:08:19): It's and I think Jack and the platforms also have a difficult task. Do you leave this person up after what we saw on Wednesday? And and a lot has changed since Wednesday. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:08:30): And so I'll I'll I'll Jason Calacanis (00:08:31): leave it at that, and then I'll throw it to Jamal. David Sacks (00:08:32): I don't wanna Chamath Palihapitiya (00:08:33): No. Jason, here's the thing. I think that we all have views, and I think the thing that I respect the most about Saks is that his views independent of the candidate du jour. And I think his views quite honestly are, in many cases, the most well reasoned and well thought out because he's frankly you know, one of the smartest people in our friend group, if not probably the smartest. So I I think what it speaks to is the fact that you can have these momentary sort of pauses where you have these people that are so polarizing that you forget that there are legitimate views on both sides. I mean, I would characterize my political views as in some cases like deeply conservative, meaning, get the government out of the way, there are a bunch of incompetent fucking buffoons. And on the other side on some issues, I think that they should be extremely interventional like in healthcare or in climate change because it's just so dire and there needs to be a public mandate in order to drive change. I don't know where I fit anymore, especially because it's harder to be nuanced as Friedberg said at the beginning without sounding like a complete crazy person because one word triggers the other side against you. So I think the thing that I just want all the listeners to appreciate not just amongst the four of us, but also amongst their own friends is having a little patience and tolerance here is really important because we cannot become the worst of ourselves, especially because of a single person who will be rendered with an enormous asterisk beside his name and by him, I mean, Trump, for the rest of our natural lives And so let's just not allow what one person has been able to do to malign all of our like, natural ability to just not be completely stupid, quite honestly. So I just think it's important to realize that we all have completely, completely nuanced perspectives. They're all worth listening to. And I would just tell people, don't fall for the simple easy out to assume that, you know, being a conservative means you're a Trump supporter or being a liberal means you're not a Trump supporter because I think that there's issues in which, you know, frankly, look, let's be honest. The The Wall Street Journal opinion by was it Lisa Lasser? What's just her name? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:10:53): Lisa Amy Lasso, somebody. Sky posted in the group chat. Nick, can you find it? I can't remember. It's Sasol or Lassos or last name. Anyways David Sacks (00:11:02): -- Oh, Kim Strossell. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:11:03): Kim Strossell. David Sacks (00:11:04): In Wesley Journal. Yeah. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:11:06): She she had a paragraph intro where and again, I wasn't a Trump supporter, have never been a Trump supporter. I do have though some sympathy to some of the things he did and the way that she described his 4 years, all those, you know, she was selective. It was impressive actually. You know, meaning getting the rhetoric right on China, getting the rhetoric on trade right, the deregulation that he's created in some ways. So there there is very much a reasonable narrative up until the capital storming where the glass was definitely half full. And it could have legitimately been viewed half full, and it was just a matter of opinion because he was just such a crazy person and his style was so shitty. I think the thing and David said this on the last part, after storming the capital, it is very clear one 100% categorically if this guy is just a complete piece of shit. And so now the people that stand with him are extremely isolated. And so I just want us to remember that there there is probably something to learn from everybody. He actually did some reasonable things intelligently well until he fucking self emulated himself. And so let's just not give into our basic instincts here. And I think there's a lot to learn from Jason Calacanis (00:12:26): everything. frustration of a lot of people is some people saw this coming. And some people, you know, when Peter Thiel said things like, hey. You know, don't take Trump literally and all this kind of stuff. Some of us were taking him literally. and some of us were very concerned. And people were saying, oh, you're being hyperbolic. He's not Hitler. He's he's not dangerous. You know what? Bullshit. He is dangerous, and you should take him literally. And I think a lot of the folks who enabled him and who thought it was funny who weren't on the other side of his vindictiveness, his dog whistling, and the anger and the violence he put out into the world. And he consistently did this. You know? He he he started by saying, you know, get that person the hell out of here. Like, I would In the old days, the cops were throwing him down the stairs kinda thing. He he is like Tony Soprano or any other mob boss who knows how to in cite people to do dangerous things without having the culpability himself. As you pointed out, Chamath, he he might be the one who gets off Scott Freeewell They're rounding up all these people, and and you got the prediction right, Shamoff. Speaker 2 (00:13:35): Like -- Yeah. David Sacks (00:13:35): -- Speaker 2 (00:13:35): he Jason Calacanis (00:13:36): these people are gonna go to jail. There's multiple felonies. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:13:38): He's not gonna get off Scott free. He's like -- Well, Jason Calacanis (00:13:41): I mean, do you think he's going to jail, and do you think -- Yes. David Sacks (00:13:43): -- Jason Calacanis (00:13:43): people who broke into the -- Yes. David Sacks (00:13:44): -- Jason Calacanis (00:13:44): you think you think Trump's going to jail? Yes. Oh my lord. David Sacks (00:13:48): I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm not I'm not sure about that. But I I I do think that, you know, like I said last time, Trump is now the 1st sitting president to toss his party the presidency, the house, and the senate, some Sirbert Hoover. Jason, if you're right about Trump, I mean, the voters have certainly been able to see that, and they've punished him and his party at the polls. I do think that whatever you do to Trump individually at this point is sort of redundant Speaker 2 (00:14:16): with that. You know, he has David Sacks (00:14:16): now cost his party Any share of the power, everything. Any share of the power in Washington. Jason Calacanis (00:14:26): So can I ask you a question, David? When I made that point about Peter Thiel and the people who supported him early, Do you have any regrets in your own thinking about being supportive of Trump in his early years? David Sacks (00:14:44): You're you're coming at this from a a place I've never even come at it from, which is I'm not like a partisan person. Mhmm. When Trump won the election in 2000 16, my first reaction was not is this, you know, hard right or wrong? I don't it you know, what side am I on? My my first reaction was why did this happen? You know, I tried to understand it. You know, I read, you know, the the hillbilly Elgie author. you know, I was you know, my my my surprise at at that happening caused me to ask questions. And, you know, what I think became really clear is that Trump won despite his manifest you know, flaws because of a because of the failure of the elites. I mean, he he was you know, he's a sort of outsider populist. and the country was trying to send the elites bipartisan, I should say. Bipartisan elites. Jason Calacanis (00:15:41): Yeah. Everybody wanted to change it. David Sacks (00:15:43): And what was that message? The to Shamas points. For the last 20 years, the bipartisan consensus in Washington has been to feed this Chinese Tiger into -- is now potentially on the cusp of of supplanting us as the sort of richest economy in the world. We have mired ourselves in these forever wars in the Middle East. I mean, again, these were things that both Democrats and Republicans got us into. So my reaction, you know, was 1st and foremost to try and understand it. And then once he was in the presidency, you know, I didn't see my job as being to be part of some crazy resistance. I mean, there needed to be a rational opposition to Trump, and there was never a rational opposition. People would basically object to anything he said just because he said it. Jason Calacanis (00:16:36): which then made your side and I and I'm gonna say your side, the conservative side. I wouldn't say your side. The conservative side dug in. because they were like, well, the left's being historical. No. Not really. David Sacks (00:16:46): Not not really. I mean, if you if you've been reading national review for the last few years and especially the last two months. There's been plenty of criticism of Trump. Jason Calacanis (00:16:55): Well, I was thinking more. Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, all these people who said they be never Trumpers became right in line Trump supporters. David Sacks (00:17:03): And and they're and they're partisan. They're they're they're politicians. They're part of the the party. For people who care about ideas, what I would say is I didn't change my ideas one way or another because Trump might happen to agree with one of them. Jason Calacanis (00:17:17): Freeburg, what's your take? David Friedberg (00:17:21): I don't like talking about Trump. Jason Calacanis (00:17:24): Well, I I that is kind of, I think, where we're where we're getting to. This is the David Sacks (00:17:28): -- Jason Calacanis (00:17:29): Look. What's the off ramp here, Friedberg? What's the end game? David Friedberg (00:17:34): You guys remember how the emperor came to power in Star Wars. It was Palpatine turned the republic against itself and then he Jason Calacanis (00:17:44): Emergency powers. David Friedberg (00:17:45): Emergency powers. Look, what I to Saks's point, like, I care more deeply I care very little about Trump, the person. And I care more deeply about the motivations of people that that want a person like that in power and I care more deeply about the way the dialogue is happening to resolve ideas and to resolve the decisions in this country right now. That is why I think that, you know, in my vote last year in our last two podcasts ago, which seems like 10 years ago, was that the biggest political failure of 2020 is the Institute of American Democracy, and it's only gotten worse in the last 2 weeks. And I think that the mechanism by which we have debate is lost. It's from everyone from the Republican to the Democratic leadership. It is attacking and finger pointing, and there is no resolve for forgiveness. There is no everything is all about justice and winning. And there is no resolve for objectivity and discovering the truth and and doing the best thing for people not the best thing for party and doing the best thing for country. And that's really easy to say and really really hard to do as I think everyone is realizing. Because as soon as you say, let's bring the country together, half the country raises their hand and says, but I want justice, and we can't come together till we have justice. And so at what point do you break the cycle? You know, revenge never ends until someone steps down first and says, you know what? I give up. I'm not gonna I'm gonna end up in the losing position, but at that point, maybe reconciliation can begin. And I I'm more concerned about the the the heat the temperature, and everyone says turn it down, but no one's actually turning it down. And so, you know, The the legacy of Trump, I I I honestly care less about. I care much more about going forward. How do we resolve to decisions that aren't all about the Democrats overrunning. And, you know, I was I was actually upset about Georgia because I do think it's a problem if you have a one party state. David Friedberg (00:20:00): and we don't have balance, and we don't have a forum for conversation. We don't have a forum, you know, for for for coming to to kind of, you know, objective sentiment that that's best for the people. And so, you know, I'm much more interested in in flipping the conversation away from Trump and trying to think about, you know, going forward What are the things? What are the forums? What are the mechanisms that we can have to to create equity in the country to create reconciliation to create balance in decision making and to turn down the temperature so that chancellor Palpatine doesn't become the evil emperor and that we don't lose to China. and, you know, all the things that are kind of emerging as as being the unfortunate outcomes. Yeah. Jason Calacanis (00:20:39): We have 3 or 4 major wars we need to solve. the pandemic, China, wealth inequality, global warming. Chamath, do you think at this point in the podcast? we should walk through what's happened since Wednesday, vis a vis, you know, Trump being deplatformed, or do you think we should talk a little bit about and skip to reconciliation. I think we have a fork in the road here. As the moderator, I'll just ask, Tremoth, maybe you could pick which direction we go. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:21:09): Well, I think it's important to talk about what happened. And I'll frame this in the in the context of Peter Thiel. He has a philosopher that he's talked a lot about Renee Gerard. And, you know, basically, the the Gerardian philosophy is essentially that you know, people come into conflict because they're extremely similar. And, you know, they effectively want the same things, and they're competing for the same sort of essentially scarce resources. And the way that you resolve that is through some sort of cathartic sacrifice. Right? Meaning, like, there needs to be a grand crime, a grand act. And I think that we're at this point to Friedberg's sort of earlier statement where you got a choice which is you either throw democracy under the bus or you you throw DJT under the bus. And you don't have a choice in that in that and and sort of, like, it's not just even the United States, almost like sort of democracy as an institution's hand was forced this past week. And so it is probably important to look at what's happened in the last few days through that lens, which is, you know, it's it's almost like people first were shocked And then now we're in the midst of that reflexive reaction to what is a simple choice, which is you can basically forgive the guy or you can reaffirm the institution, which means to sacrifice the guy. And I think that's the thing that's happening in real time, and it's going to be, I think, over the next few weeks, a super messy conversation. because you're gonna have a bunch of dumb decisions. You're gonna have a bunch of overreaching. You know, you're gonna have a bunch of dramatic sort of belly aching on both sides. You know, there was this thing today where Devin Nunez was, like, screaming about how he had lost 3000 followers on parlor or 3,000,000 followers on parlor, but he was saying it on Fox News, which is distribution to millions of people. And so -- Can Jason Calacanis (00:23:11): I ask a a question about this reality now we're all facing? Do because The event that occurred on Wednesday, we are all still trying to process and new information is coming in. As we, you know, the as people get the videos and and as we let the dust settle, the dust is settling. I'm curious, Saxx, how do you look at what happened on Wednesday? Do you view it as a coup? Do you Because some of the information that's come out about they were trying to get to Pence and that they wanted to kidnap people. And then you that dovetails with the kidnapping schemes that were going on and there were pipe bombs, and a police officer was beaten to death with a pipe, and his skull was crushed or something. We don't have all the details yet. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:23:56): Fire extinguisher. Yeah. Jason Calacanis (00:23:57): A fire extinguisher who's beaten to death with a fire extinguisher. Some of the videos I've seen of police being dragged, you know, that counteract the selfie police, you know, so many different things occurred on Wednesday. I think we all have to just think about what happened on Wednesday. How do we each feel about what happened on Wednesday. I'll I'll go to you first, Zach. Well, I mean David Sacks (00:24:19): -- Jason Calacanis (00:24:19): And not because I'm framing you as anything, just because you haven't talked. David Sacks (00:24:22): No. I'm I already said that I I already gave my thoughts in the last that it was outrageous. It was a travesty. It was a rally that turned into a riot that turned into you know, some sort of insurrection, I guess, you could call it. It was it was her rebellion against authority. I think coup is is potentially a strong word because it wasn't nobody ever had their hands on the levers of power. I mean, the the fate of the republic was never in question. I know there are even, you know, people tweeting about how the the these routers, whatever you wanna call them, almost got their hand on the electors ballots. I mean yeah. But we all know how they're voting. Even if they had gotten them, we would just have gotten new ones. I mean, that was sort of a ceremonial thing. But, look, it was it was an absolute outrage. But I do think that there is a thing happening now called threat inflation where, you know, using language like, you know, going from riot to insurrection to now coup, it there is a a type of inflation happening that is then used to justify the reaction by the other side to it, which is now, you know, the basically, the ending of freedom of speech which is really I think the big thing has happened since the last pod. It's really the it's the reason why we are having this emergency pod, I think, is because of what's happened there. Jason Calacanis (00:25:51): I think the emergency pot was just to make sure that the pot wasn't ending because of you not getting in a big fight. I think that was people's concern. Was that the Beatles were breaking up? David Sacks (00:26:00): Yeah. that's true. Look. Just keeping the pod together, you know, with with 4 big egos on it, you're right. It's hard. It is like the Beatles. You know? One day is gonna break up, but but not but not yet. Not yet. But but I but I wanna I wanna tie in this issue with you said what you said about the off ramp, okay, which is, you know, what is the off ramp from this look, everybody understands, I think, regardless of what's that political spectrum you're on, that we are caught in Speaker 2 (00:26:24): a cycle of David Sacks (00:26:25): insane hyperpartisan warfare and tit for tat retaliation. And that is the thing that we need to that that is the ledge we need to walk back from. Okay? But the problem that everybody has is that they can only see the other side doing it. You know? They can't see themselves doing it. This is a two way street. Both sides are doing it. Jason Calacanis (00:26:49): And that's how de escalation works is both sides have to concede something. David Sacks (00:26:53): yes. And unless you can see when your side is doing it, we're never gonna break the cycle. Now the thing that is happening right now, now what Trump did was absolutely outrageous, And I think it it brought him to an ignominious end in American politics. He will pay for it in the history books. if not in a court of law. Okay? But now what has happened is the next step in the tit for tat retaliation. What the the stormy of the capital has now been used to implement a sweeping attack on free speech. You know? The the Twitter employees who sent that letter to Jack who've been demanding this for years have finally gotten their way, and there is a widespread purge going on. It not just of Trump, not just a permanent ban on on Trump, and then a whole bunch of other people, you know, conservatives. There are now liberal accounts. There's an account I wasn't even aware of called red scare. They're basically, you know, pretty pretty much on the left. No one can say exactly what it was that got them banned. I guess they had Steve Bannon on their podcast, they are suddenly banned from Twitter. Nobody knows why. Jason Calacanis (00:27:58): Oh, I I subscribed to the red scare podcast It's actually it's called the dirtbag left. They're kinda like socialists into trying to be public intellectuals, and it's it's oddly compelling. I'll leave it at that. David Sacks (00:28:12): But they are now banned from from Twitter. They somehow got -- Jason Calacanis (00:28:14): Let's pause for a second on DJT. getting banned from Twitter. This is close to a 100,000,000 followers. It's a David Sacks (00:28:24): $1,000,000,000 Jason Calacanis (00:28:25): in value. He just had the PGA say they'll never you do a Trump golf course again. So the ram the real world ramifications for Trump are he he's his businesses are gonna be devastated. His platform is gone. But and and I was very pro Trump staying on Twitter. I thought it was insane to think that the president of the United States would have their Twitter handle removed. That seemed crazy to me. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:28:50): However -- Crazy. Jason Calacanis (00:28:52): it's a crazy concept. That being said, Trump knows how to dance right up to the line of the terms of service and I think Well, Chamath Palihapitiya (00:28:59): here's the thing. Here's the thing. Jason Calacanis (00:29:01): I think there's imminent danger, and I think what we don't know is what is concerning to me. The fact that all of these services have turned him off, I believe is indicative of Wednesday was underhyped and that they really did intend to kidnap folks and blow off bombs. And the Proud Boys founder was arrested days before with, you know, selling large magazine weapons. I I think that they wanted to kill and kidnap people. and perhaps even, like, hang the vice president. I mean, this sounds crazy, but that's Chamath Palihapitiya (00:29:38): that's that's what I think is going Jason Calacanis (00:29:40): on with Twitter. I think they told I think they showed them the sheets. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:29:43): Jason stop. I honestly like, let's not fucking fear monger. Like we're we're no better than anybody else with that bullshit. We don't know any of that crap. And the reality is that if they were doing that, date they are not stupid enough to do it on a platform where you basically follow anybody you want. Okay? Like, I mean, if that were the case then fucking ISIS would be using Twitter. If they don't use Twitter, they use Telegram. Jason Calacanis (00:30:04): Tremont, in live streamed, storming of the capital. These people are not smart. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:30:09): We've I I I anyways, I look. Can we just let's just, like, let's not do the left version of QAnon. Okay. Let's not have now the left's version of the crazy conspiracy theories. Here's here's I think what is worth talking about. We really, reflexively, all of a sudden, started to push back on free speech in a way that doesn't make any sense. Meaning, I really was surprised, like, why are these Silicon Valley companies reacting now? Like, if you had a reason to do it, it had been building for years years years. And in many ways, it was kind of like this random moment And I and I and I mean random because I just don't think that, you know, everything up until that point was not equally sort of violent disgusting under the same lens that that moment was. And so had you had a reason to ban him, you would have banned him already. But then doing it in the way you did and then having this cascading effect on folks on the left and the right just getting basically pushed out the door to me was just completely reactive and not rooted in anything. It didn't to me, it didn't make any sense. It it it it's it's I don't know. I was I was very frustrated and and a little taken aback. David Sacks (00:31:26): Well, can can I can I jump in? Can I jump Chamath Palihapitiya (00:31:28): off in Speaker 2 (00:31:28): on that? David Sacks (00:31:28): because -- And and -- -- and -- -- about Chamath Palihapitiya (00:31:30): And and then the last thing is, like, they let Donald Trump hit a one outer. Like, he was painted in a quarter to be a complete demagogue And instead, now it has been wrapped in a free speech issue where now more people are talking about free speech than what a scumbag he is. How did we let that happen? David Sacks (00:31:51): Big big big tech blundered into it again. I mean, we had a unanimity across the political spectrum that what happened if the capital was wrong and Donald Trump was responsible for it. And, Jamath, exactly like you said, the topic has now changed to censorship by Big Tech, which is a real issue. I mean, look, our freedom of speech is a shrine in the constitution In the first amendment of the bill of rights, it's the first fucking one. Okay? It's the one the framers, the constitution cured about the most. Because Free speech is not just necessary and important for democracy. It's the reason why we have our freedom is so that we can think and speak and worship as we please. And that is legitimately under threat. You know, what what big and and and by the way, it's not just the permanent ban on Trump. You had simultaneous to that. It was it it wasn't just the banning of all these accounts. You also had the deplatforming of Parler, which is sort of the Twitter alternative by Google and Apple at the same time and in Amazon. And so you're you're talking about really deplatforming not just Trump, but millions of people. And so the the amazing thing is that we've had this sweeping appropriation of power by, you know, half a dozen oligarchs who now have the right to determine what we see and read, and people are cheering because they hate Trump so much. they can't see that the biggest power grab in history has happened. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:33:24): Has happened. Jason Calacanis (00:33:25): Okay. I wanna I wanna David Friedberg (00:33:26): I wanna say something on this because I'm not sure I really fully agree. I I think that the point that Saks is making about freedom of speech applies to what you're legally allowed to say. Sachs, we're talking about private services that a user chooses to use and the service provider chooses to make available to that user in a market space. And in that context, it feels to me like everyone has a choice of where to go and what services to use. And frankly, if there aren't good services to use, and there's a lot of people that wanna use 1. The free market will resolve to create 1. And we're already seeing that with Signal being the number one app on the App Store today that emerging new platforms will win in a marketplace where old service providers are no longer catering to the market demands for a service. I'll also say that David Sacks (00:34:18): -- Speaker 2 (00:34:18): Wait. Wait. David Sacks (00:34:18): Can can I can I respond to that one? David Friedberg (00:34:20): Yeah. And then and then I'll I'll make one more point, but go ahead. Yeah. David Sacks (00:34:23): So I understand the first amendment only applies to to government. Okay? It doesn't apply to private companies, but but here's here's the the thing is that when the the framers of the constitution wrote that. freedom of speech was something that took place in the in the town square. Right? You would go to the courthouse steps and put down your soapbox. You could speak to people gather a crowd That is why the right to assemble is part of the first amendment is because assembling is tantamount to free speech. Where do people assemble today online? On these monopoly network services, like a Facebook, like Twitter, And, again, it's not and and and and to your point, couldn't they go to some other site? Well, they did. They went to Parler. Guess what happened? The operating systems just banned Parler. And so, you know, I hear this this David Friedberg (00:35:10): far -- There's an open there's an open WebSacks. You know, you don't need to go to Apple's App Store or Google's Google Play. You can put an app on Android just don't need to do it through Google Play. And if you don't wanna use Apple's, you know, OS, you can use another phone. Speaker 2 (00:35:22): And by David Friedberg (00:35:23): the way, and everyone can access the Internet. The Internet is free and open, and anyone can create a new network node on the Internet, and anyone can put any information they want on that node provided it's within the the the the boundaries and constraints of the law. and they can make it available to anyone else. David Sacks (00:35:37): Maybe for for now, but you can't use AWS, and Google might not make you show up in search results. David Friedberg (00:35:43): You could turn your iMac you could turn your at home into a into a web server, and you could make an available on the Internet. David Sacks (00:35:48): If Google and Amazon and Apple have censored you at the operating system level, and remove you from Google search results, how in the world is anybody supposed to find you? Jason Calacanis (00:35:58): Yeah. You're gonna be able to be removed from Google search results. Let me David Friedberg (00:36:00): let me just I I I think it's important the absence. So so I do think that there's still an open market and there's an open Internet that people can access information freely and use the Internet freely without being dependent on a handful of your right, high highly scaled services and highly scaled platforms. But there's certainly a marketplace and an opportunity for for innovation there. I'll also say that the the platforms that made these decisions to ban these accounts and and kick people off are not doing so under the demand of law. And I think that that is a really and so I I think to some extent, you know, I'm probably on your side in this context. But The standard is not a legal standard. The standard is a judgment. It is an it is a it is a moral or or some principled standard that is sitting above and beyond the legal standard that they're required to comply with. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:36:52): This is the point. David Friedberg (00:36:53): And this is really scary. Right? Because at that point, it becomes a subjective decision about who you kick off based on your interpretation of what they said and what they intended when they said it. And that leads to the infinite slippery slope, and it's here. Yeah. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:37:08): You nailed it 1 fucking 1000%. That is the exact issue. It's not necessarily about free speech. It is that they when you have accumulated power and you effectively have a quasi governmental organization that gets to operate in the free market when it wants to, but then operate like a quasi governmental monopoly when it wants to. All of a sudden, the power becomes in the shadows. Right? There is a random VP someplace who actually controls this decision. And the problem is, today, if a politician does something, or a political body or a government body does something, you have redress. Right? You can sue that entity. You know who it is. there's a pathway through the courts, through the law, through the constitution. The problem with this is all of a sudden it becomes murky and look, You flip a coin 50% of the time, guys. You're gonna get your way. The other 50% of the time, who the fuck knows what'll happen and you may be completely on the wrong side of it? And this is I think the problem let me I just wanna read you guys something. There was a there was this manifesto or memo. This woman who was a former Facebook data scientist Sophie Zhang, she wrote. I'm just I'm just gonna read this because I think it's it's really interesting here. The 66100 word memo written by former Facebook data scientist Sophie Zang is filled with concrete examples of heads of government and political parties in Azerbaijan and Honduras using fake accounts or misrepresenting themselves to sway public opinion. In countries including India, Ukraine, Spain, Brazil, Bolivia, and Ecuador, She found evidence of coordinated campaigns of varying sizes to boost or hinder political candidates or outcomes, though she did not always conclude who was behind them. She said, in the three years I've spent at Facebook, I found multiple blatant attempts by foreign national governments to abuse our platform on vast scales to mislead their own citizenry and cause international news on multiple occasions. Now let me just stop there. Replace your United States with all those countries and we care. But there are people in all of those countries where, you know, those countries mean more to them than what's happening in the United States. David Friedberg (00:39:10): That's right. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:39:11): And that represents the problem. David Friedberg (00:39:13): That's what we're dealing with. The the social suasion that is influencing the leaders of the tech companies are largely their democrat employees that live in the Bay Area. And that's a big part of why the decisions are being made. And the way that they're being made and the priorities are being set is because as you pointed out, I think it was Saka put it on Twitter and and Jason, you've talked about this, but talent is everything in Silicon Valley. And if your employees tell you they're gonna quit working for you or they're not gonna do their jobs, you're gonna take that to heart. And there's not a lot of influence or suasion that you know, citizens of Bolivia and, you know, Uruguay can have with executives at Facebook and Twitter, but people in the Bay Area have a lot of vision. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:39:57): have a fucking clue about the politics in Azerbaijan or Bolivia. Does anyone of us have a point of view? David Friedberg (00:40:03): And and I think that's that's that's the point. It's like it's like as soon as you judgment to the equation, you know, you're gonna be wrong with some people and you're gonna be right with some people versus using an absolute standard. And if the issue is that the law if the law doesn't define the absolute standard, then you need to go and change the law. Jason Calacanis (00:40:20): I I think there's gonna be a couple of free market solutions that come here because You Even as difficult as this decision can be, you layer it onto it, somebody who is completely insincere and manipulating the system on purpose and to your point David in the last podcast is sitting in the president of the United States seat, you know, it carries different weight. And if you look at the words that Trump used or Rudy used, you know, we wanna have combat, trial by combat, you know, is that somebody's gotta make a judgment call. Is that an incitement to violence? Or do you just look at what occurred after they said the words? It's a very difficult thing to do. There are free market solutions that will emerge. Bitcoin is something we've talked about. It's an incredible run. nobody's controlling that. There is Mastodon and plenty of other peer to peer software that will be deployed, I predict. and that will put up a competition now for these services. And it will be impossible to ban those peer to peer platforms. And so we'll have some products emerge. David Friedberg (00:41:23): Once universal truth, this information wants to be free. So if there is an opinion, if there is a voice, if there is information out there David Sacks (00:41:29): -- Jason Calacanis (00:41:29): There'll be a free market response to parlor being shut down. I I sincerely believe that a lot of these decisions are being made not just at the behest of the employees. I do they agree. They have tremendous power. And I and I've said that obviously many times. I think what's going on here is people believe that Trump and we and you said it yourself, David, you there's gonna be a white knuckle 10 days. And I don't know if you so believe that there's a chance on 17th or 19th or whatever that there could be more unrest. I actually think a lot of people woke up and said, I don't know if I want to give this guy the ability to say the next 3 or 4 crazy things that make people show up at a person's home or, you know, the dog whistling and, you you know, if if if trumps comments on Wednesday at that rally and Rudy Giuliani's and Donald Trump Junior's, the the people who really incited this. and and they're gonna face some amount of civil and and and criminal charges, I believe. if they did that on Twitter or Facebook or YouTube or Periscope or whatever it happens to be, and then this happened Would those platforms have some liability, especially after, you know, what's happened? I think that they're just and part of this is covering their asses, I think they should have just done a 30 day ban, not a permanent ban. So at least they would have the cover of saying, listen. This is too heated We're gonna pause for 30 days, and then we'll reassess it February 1st or February 15th. David Sacks (00:43:01): Right. Well so so part of the problem here is that there is no policy. Right? The policy is public outcry. And if there's enough public outcry, And there's enough pressure or letter writing from the employees, or there's enough saber rattling by the people who are gonna run the senate entry committee next year. Jason Calacanis (00:43:20): Or the language was so clear. David Sacks (00:43:23): It's but there is so so 3 months ago, I wrote a blog post about the the policy that I thought the social media company should take. I said for moderation. And what I said is there actually is a moderation policy consistent with the first amendment that could be implemented because the first amendment does not protect many categories of basically dangerous speech. There's, like, 9 major categories. It includes incitement of violence. It includes, you know, trying to, you know, try to provoke a crime, it it includes fraud, it includes defamation. There are many categories of speech that aren't protected by the first amendment. And social media companies could have said, listen. This is our policy is we are gonna try and be broadly consistent with the first amendment. But if somebody goes outside of those lines, then we will remove it. So there was a way to your to your point, Jason. I think there was a way to remove some of Trump's treat tweets for incitement consistent with the first amendment, but that's not what they did. You know, that and maybe that would instead of what they do is is a lifetime ban combined with rounding up, you know, twice the usual number of suspects. combined with a d platforming, not at the account level, but at now at the application level by Google, Apple, and Amazon, And none of this has been explained. There is no policy. What it is is a -- Jason Calacanis (00:44:49): No. I mean, there's David Sacks (00:44:50): a -- Hold on. What it is is an appropriation power by oligarchs. Jason Calacanis (00:44:54): No. No. There is a policy. The problem is, as we've just discussed, it's an interpretation that must occur. And the interpretation of Wednesday's comments on a tweet might be, okay. Yeah. They're borderline, but not enough to shut his account down. And and these folks know how to do it. When when Rudy Jolley says, I want a trial by combat or, you know, if Trump says, you're not gonna have a country unless you fight and you have to fight and we're never going to accept these results, Is that inciting or not? David Sacks (00:45:22): So the policy the policy that that that I want is something broadly consistent with the 1st amendment. because -- But Jason Calacanis (00:45:30): in those in those phrases I just told you, is the are those inciting or are those on the borderline if you were making the decision? David Sacks (00:45:38): Right. So the you know, putting my lawyer hat on for a second. There's questions of law and questions of fact. Okay? And we can debate what you're describing are questions of fact What I'm trying to say is, well, what what is the law? What is the policy that we're -- Jason Calacanis (00:45:50): The law would say those were not direct incitement. David Sacks (00:45:53): No. there is no policy. These social media companies don't have any policy. They're making it up as they go along based on the pressure they get. Jason Calacanis (00:46:00): What would you do with Trump's comments from Wednesday if they were in tweets Yeah. David Sacks (00:46:03): I'll tell you. So first of all, I would have implemented a a moderation policy broadly consistent with the first amendment and then certain tweets that were inciting violence while there was rioting on the capital, I would have been okay taking those down. I would have taken those down. where I think and and and I think even doing something until the inauguration, if you think that Trump poses a threat, Speaker 2 (00:46:26): He does. David Sacks (00:46:27): I think I think that's okay. I think that's okay. Jason Calacanis (00:46:29): So you would have been fine with a 30 day ban or something. David Sacks (00:46:32): Well, like a 10 day ban or whatever, but a lifetime ban that like, on what basis, do you on what constitutional grounds do you justify that? And, look, I know it's a private company. But my point is This ID our free speech rights got privatized. Okay? The town square got digitized and centralized. We used to have thousands. We used to have town squares where people could convene all over this country. We had a multiplicity of newspapers. All of that got replaced by a handful of tech monopolists. Our free speech rights got digitized. If they take away our ability to speak, we don't have free speech rights. Who do we appeal to when we get canceled by a Google or Apple? What court can we go to? Jason Calacanis (00:47:15): There isn't. You have to break it down. David Friedberg (00:47:17): By the way, I think this is the best argument having an Internet court. And if you think about the standards that are being applied, they're being applied haphazardly randomly by by by these companies in response to to to near term market forces. You know, what are what is everyone saying they have to do? or what are their employees rally -- Yeah. David Sacks (00:47:36): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:47:36): to do. Securities law? David Friedberg (00:47:39): Well, there's there's there's a there's privacy laws that say what you you know, that companies that digital companies cannot take certain types of data. And, you know, why not have law -- There Speaker 2 (00:47:48): are hate Jason Calacanis (00:47:48): speech laws out there as well. David Friedberg (00:47:49): And and why not be more specific? And then you like, an Internet court adjudicate and make the decision about what to take down and what not to take down, they are as they are very responsive to warrants when there's a criminal act underway. And so why not let an Internet court be responsive to take down requests or to -- What do you think Chamath? David Sacks (00:48:05): -- David Friedberg (00:48:06): or to hear another sort of David Sacks (00:48:07): -- Jason Calacanis (00:48:07): Good idea. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:48:08): No. It's it's mandatory. And, again, it David Sacks (00:48:11): -- David Friedberg (00:48:11): And it centralizes it centralizes the standards. Right? So you don't have to have ad hoc random decisions and let if if what Saks is saying is true, it creates a standard that everyone has to abide by and that every consumer can trust them to abide by. David Sacks (00:48:24): First first, we need a bill of rights. Right? First, we need to say that we as citizens have rights that the court can defend Jason Calacanis (00:48:33): can defend. That is David Sacks (00:48:34): the problem. We don't have any rights. These companies are acting willy Nilly canceling people, depriving their speech rights. And don't tell me that you can still speak, you know, somewhere. If you get if you get canceled, Chamath Palihapitiya (00:48:49): Here's the thought exercise, and I want everybody listening who's on the left to think about this exact issue. Your favorite social media company is trying to get a really, really big deal closed. and they, you know, are trying to curry favor with a a bunch of brands and a bunch of governments. And those governments and brands, let's just say it's in India. Right? Huge market, 1,200,000,000 people. They say, you know what? We're a little tepid on abortion. And so the deal is you need to dial down any ad from planned parenthood. You need to prevent plant parenthood groups from amplifying from being able to fundraise. Think about that exact issue now and ask yourself, is it okay? because there's a lot of people that are you know, pro choice that listen to this, and the and you I'm sure right now your blood is fucking boiling. But there is no distinction between that decision and what happened over the last few days. There's none. It's arbitrary. It's random. It doesn't necessarily make any sense. There is no way to readdress it. Then that's the biggest problem with all of this thing. It just Jason Calacanis (00:50:06): varies -- -- concept that newspapers should have in Ombudsman, and the New York Times had went up until, I think, 2017. and then they got rid of it because I think it was causing too much headaches. But it's a person who sits who works for the organization but has complete independence and sits outside of it, to comment on these kind of situations. And I think that's what these companies Chamath Palihapitiya (00:50:24): should do is -- Jason, they have these things, but those are fig leaves, and those are just meant to basically -- No. Speaker 2 (00:50:29): No. They don't they Chamath Palihapitiya (00:50:29): don't have it in the track of a dumb politician. Jason Calacanis (00:50:31): it's not it's not David Sacks (00:50:33): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:50:33): Jason, they have a fucking council. Facebook has a council with all Jason Calacanis (00:50:36): that transparent. They don't say, here's our decision making and talk to the public directly about it. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:50:40): I think that you can look to securities law. There's some examples in securities law, which I think are really interesting, which is that a CFO and a CEO has to certify quarterly results. Right? Meaning, for people who have issues with a Speaker 2 (00:50:54): company and with the statement of Chamath Palihapitiya (00:50:54): their earnings, which is the sort of atomic unit of value creation and financial reporting. They have a mechanism to redress it because you're certifying that something is true. Right? You're certifying a set of decisions have been made, and audit has been done. You know, the software works, you know, the blah blah blah. What is the version of that for all of this other stuff, which is that, you know, where where are the people? Who are they actually that make the decisions? You can't point to Jack and Zach and say those guys are the decision makers. I think in these examples, what you have to point to is there was a petition of potentially several 100 or a few 1000 engineers And depending on how important they were, they may have gotten their way. That's crazy, guys. Jason Calacanis (00:51:37): Well and Trump served it up to him. I mean, if you if you -- No. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:51:41): And the worst part is no. But the worst part is these people who are probably very left of center completely fuck the left, and then they basically let Donald Trump off the hook because now we're gonna completely be talking about free speech, whereas the odds that Donald Trump would have gone to jail and been prosecuted was basically, in my opinion, a fucking stone cold lock And then now after this happened, there's a bunch of those people who are gonna basically like him and and now they're not gonna necessarily go along with it. David Sacks (00:52:09): Exactly. 100100 per 100%. And and and, Jason, Chamath Palihapitiya (00:52:12): you're right. Good fucking job, guys. Yeah. You got the exact opposite of what you wanted. David Sacks (00:52:18): Exactly. And here here's the thing, Jason. You're right. Trump's outrage gave the censors the excuse to impose this. That's the way that censorship always works. If you are censoring somebody popular, it would never happen. Sensorship always starts by censoring some outrage that everybody agrees to be censored. And no one even notices that what's happening is you're handing power to a group of people that they can now use against you in the future. Sensitive always starts as something you like, and it ends as something you don't like. when it finally gets turned against you. What is the policy of the people who are now canceling willy nilly? It's cancel culture. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:53:00): By the way, David Sacks (00:53:01): it's not the first amendment. Jason Calacanis (00:53:02): Well, I I think he had a not say Willy Nilly after Trump incited riots. David Sacks (00:53:07): If there's enough pub Jason Calacanis (00:53:08): It might have been an overreaction, but I think it's the proper reaction. You agree. It's the proper Chamath Palihapitiya (00:53:12): reaction just so people understandability. Jason Calacanis (00:53:14): The proper reaction to maybe do a 30 day suspension. but maybe not indefinitely on all platforms. Forget about Trump for Chamath Palihapitiya (00:53:19): a second. There are all these, like, random fucking useless accounts with sixty thousand people that were basically suspended. Jason Calacanis (00:53:25): Well, a lot of them were bought. Yeah. David Sacks (00:53:27): 60,000 Chamath Palihapitiya (00:53:29): followers. Is it like, I mean, like, it doesn't like, what's going on? It makes no sense. David Sacks (00:53:35): Jason, I mean, you used to be a member of the press. No one believed in the first amendment more than you, and you're letting your outrage You Jason Calacanis (00:53:42): still -- I don't have some information. Alright. You're -- -- out of David Sacks (00:53:44): your outrage at Trump -- No. -- cause you to pull your punches on these on censorship. Jason Calacanis (00:53:49): No. No. I'll be totally clear. I think they should have an abudsman. I think they should lean towards allowing speech. I was anti kicking Trump off the platform when the entire left was asking for it to be and you can look at the receipts I've been saying for 4 years, it's insane to take POTUS off. I actually, in my heart of hearts, believe that there is imminent risk in keeping him able to communicate with this group of people, and there should have been a 30 day time out for him. And I don't think it should have been indefinite, It should have been a 30 day time out. And I think we should do what folks said. I don't know who said it on the last pod or if I heard it somewhere else. Like, actually, if we actually were to audit some of these claims and create an independent counsel to audit the election, that might be a way to heal things. And I think giving Trump a David Sacks (00:54:32): -- -- Chamath Palihapitiya (00:54:32): said that. Jason Calacanis (00:54:33): Who said Friedberg said it? Yeah. So I think that's like a power move as well. But I I'm still pro freedom of speech, I think there's imminent danger. And I don't think it's willy nilly. This is where I think sometimes you get you you miss and you misrepresent yourself, David. and we started this off with me misrepresenting you. But when you say it's Willy Nilly, it's not Willy Nilly. We just had this active you know, treason and this violence at the capital. It is not a willy Nilly. Jason, Jason, you have to admit, though. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:55:06): the entire world had Donald Trump in a corner, debt to rights, and he hit a one other and he hit a one other. Jason Calacanis (00:55:13): It's it's a bad strategy to deplatform to this level. I agree. And then then to include, the reason they're going after Parler, by the way, is that this guy Lynn Wood threatened he said that they should take vice president Pence out and shoot him. And I think that actually David Sacks (00:55:28): -- Jason Calacanis (00:55:29): Linwood is insane. But they literally didn't take it down. David Sacks (00:55:32): Well, that that that was incitement to violence. And in under the first amendment, you can clearly prohibit that. I would Jason Calacanis (00:55:38): And Parler didn't take it down. They dragged their feet David Sacks (00:55:40): taken down. Jason Calacanis (00:55:42): And he said it's a metaphor to go take Pence out and shoot him. And this is Donald Trump's lawyer or one of his lawyers, previous lawyers. David Sacks (00:55:49): That in my view, that doesn't dejust that doesn't justify what's happened. What I mean by Willy Nilly is why is red scaraben taken down? So left wing sight. Jason Calacanis (00:55:56): I don't know why why David Sacks (00:55:57): is why is Dan Bongino been taken down. He's like a fox commentator. I I've heard him. I mean, he's sort of you know, I I don't know. He he's kind of a pretty middle of the road fox type guy. I don't really know what he did. We have no transparency into why people are being taken down. I can't go evaluate for myself what they said to see if it you know, if it warranted censorship. Jason Calacanis (00:56:21): And that's -- -- might say that this overreaction was playing into the hands of the Jason, what happens if -- -- controlled senate Congress. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:56:30): Jason, what happens if, like, a big pharma company who wants to do a big ad buy on Facebook says, hey, guys. You gotta really dial down anti vaxx content. Now I'm not an anti vaxxer. But do I at some level believe in their right to talk about being an anti vaxxer? Absolutely. I think it's insane, but should they have a right to do it? Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Jason Calacanis (00:56:52): I'm a fan of the labeling. I thought the labeling was the right direction to go in where if but but Sachs, you did talk about how for the last 60 days Trump fermented this insane conspiracy theory. So I guess the question is, Do you think that insane conspiracy theory or the question we have to ask all of ourselves? I'm not pinning it on you. And, you know, I'm I'm sensitive to you being pinned as a president's answer for all of Trump's bad behavior. But we you did say and you did say this is a 2 month process of indoctrinating people into thinking this was all stolen, and then they put labels on it. and then the capital gets stormed. So I think these companies are being put in a very uncomfortable position, which is at what point do you stop this maniac? if he's if he's lying constantly. David Sacks (00:57:36): We we were talking about these challenges on the pod for the last couple of months, and we were laughing I mean, we were laughing at how ridiculous they were and how ridiculous the the the things that, you know, Rudy was doing and, you know, it was crazy. So look. Jason Calacanis (00:57:51): But not to his supporters. David Sacks (00:57:53): Well but here here's the thing -- 1 Jason Calacanis (00:57:55): of which is dead. Yeah. Or 4 of which are dead. David Sacks (00:57:57): I understand. And here's the thing, democracy takes work. I mean, we have to, you know, we have to spend the time to actually dispel these views. And, you know, it would be nice to be able to wave a magic wand and just censor the things that we don't like. But here's the thing, none of us has a monopoly on the truth. And, you know, we knew what the truth was in this particular instance. But there are other cases where we don't. And and and the question is really who has the power to decide? So, you know, just I'll tell you just a a real quick story. you know, when I went to law school all those years ago, the very first class that, you know, that that that I had in law school, it's this very arcane class called civil procedure, which is about what court you take a case to. Okay? And, you know, I was kinda wondering why is this, like, the first thing we we learn in law school. And I'll tell you the reason why is because the first question in the law is who decides is jurisdiction. Who has the power to decide an issue? And here's the thing. I would love for Lin Wood to to be canceled and to not be able to spout these insane theories. But who are we gonna give the power to to make those decisions And what we've done this week by we had this feel good moment. I you know, at least in in the tech community, being able to say, Donald Trump band for life and all these other people we hate. But we have now handed this enormous power to this big tech cartel and it's not gonna end here. This is what the end is the beginning. David Friedberg (00:59:31): Look. I I I don't think that the the leadership at Big Tech wanna be in this position. You know, I I think it's easy to blame the individuals, Zuck, Jack, Susan Sundar, whomever, you know, I worked at Google when it was a small when it was a private company, you know, Timok Knows work with Zuck. I think we've all had experience with these individuals. And I think one thing having spend time with all of them, I can tell you is that I believe that all of them want information to be freely available and accessible. And that that's a a really core principle. And and the challenge that they're facing is that there is you know, as we talked about, this social pressure to move away from that core principle because there is always an argument to be made. And there is no universal or unifying kind of court law that says, this is the way things should it should be done by law. And as a result, the the pressure is what changes the behavior. And that pressure will change. The tides will will shift, and and it's a it's a it's a very kind of ugly circumstance. But, you know, I think characterizing the individuals as being in charge of this sex or, you know, trying to to handcuff to to to make them feel like they should be handcuffed in some way is, you know, is is a is a bit of a mischaracterization. And we saw that even in in the congressional hearings last July, just what an absolute joke it was to see congress try and question these folks because the answers they have, I think, were reasonable and rational. And as we all know, as technologists like Congress doesn't understand that stuff. The biggest observation to me is that the law hasn't kept up with the Internet. And, you know, if you look at how the the DMCA was written, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Shortly after, it was written YouTube with all this user generated content, saw a lot of copyright content show up. and they would get a takedown notice, which is the legal process by which you remove copyright content. And then as soon as they took it down, someone else would post the same content. And then someone else would post the same content, And then suddenly, you know, Viacom sued Google because they were like, look. David Friedberg (01:01:41): Our copyrighted content is being continuously displayed on your site, on your platform, And that's because the mechanism defined in the DMCA did not keep up with the law. The biggest issue, I I think, is is is a legal one, which is, you know, how do we create laws and how do we create Private industry meets government, court, body governing principles that, you know, allows these arbitrations to operate. Speaker 2 (01:02:05): No. No. No. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:02:05): No. Can I say something? David Sacks (01:02:06): Look. Just one sentence. I mean, apply first amendment obligations to these monopolists. That's what my blog post was about. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:02:15): I'll I'll tell you where this could go in a bad direction is if you look at if you think about what social media has become, I would put it on the top of the list that includes other critical national resources that any country has. So for example, if you look at in Bolivia, you know, as it turns out, Bolivia has incredible access to Lithium. Right? And lithium is like an -- We David Friedberg (01:02:41): all knew that. Jason Calacanis (01:02:42): We wanna medicate Trump with lithium. Is that what you're saying? Chamath Palihapitiya (01:02:45): No. Lithium, the The the input into into lithium ion batteries. But it also turns out that at every step along the way, Bolivia's basically nationalized every single private investment of a Lithium mine. In countries all around the world, there's numerous examples of this privatization turning into nationalization when something becomes important enough. And part of I think what we're struggling with here is know, there's gonna be this crazy push pull in in in social media. What do you think happens if, you know, India actually says, hey. You know what? You're gonna have to nationalize the rails of WhatsApp or the rails of Facebook if you wanna be in my country. Why why is that so inconceivable? David Sacks (01:03:33): I think you're right that that's that that is a second order that that is a second order consequence of censorship that nobody even thinks about. You have the leaders of many countries across the world using Twitter as a as a channel Do you think they are now gonna wanna rely on that given that Twitter can censor them at any time? They're gonna hand that lever of national power to Jack Dorsey. No way. They're gonna look at this. I mean -- Chamath Palihapitiya (01:03:59): Not even Jack Dorsey, David. Somebody in, like, the bowels of the user, you know, user user access group. Some some brand OVP someplace is gonna stop the president or the prime minister of a country in communicating to their people. It's David Sacks (01:04:11): not awesome. Exactly. And and this is exactly the kind of second order consequence that the people who who, I think, engage in this feel good moment of censoring Trump didn't even think through. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:04:22): Didn't even think through. This is exactly why the best solution would have been a temporary pause on these accounts to let the dust settle. But any of these completely fundamental decisions that you can't go back from, what is the technical difference between saying it's banned forever and it's banned for 10 days today. Technically, it's the same decision. Yeah. But exactly what David said, you feed into this emotion just like the people that storm the capital fed into their emotion, and then you wake up the next day with this hangover and you realize to yourself, what the fuck did I just do? And I think that's that's what we're gonna have to sort out now is you cannot unscramble this fucking egg. Because irrespective of whatever happens in the United States, there are 2 to 3,000,000,000 monthly active users, daily active users on these products, they all report to different people. And none of those people that they report to are Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg. They are the presidents and prime ministers duly elected individuals of these countries. And so you're not gonna allow these 2 private citizens to disrupt power. Jason Calacanis (01:05:29): We we we have so much information. We don't know about what occurred this past week. I think it's all gonna get investigated. It's it's gonna be like a 911 commission all over again or Ukraine, etcetera. And and I think that's why a pause would be really good to find out exactly, you know, Trump's been telling people to come to this rally. It's gonna be a hell of a show and it's gonna be incredible and you gotta be there on the gonna be out of control. You know, how how how much did they know? Right? Like, that's what I David Friedberg (01:05:57): really was. I How much did they Jason Calacanis (01:05:59): know about what was gonna go down? And why are these people carrying zip ties and pipe bombs? You know, like, this could have been a lot worse. I think that's why people are responding. this way. And and I saw something today that I thought was I'll I'll let you pick it up from me, Freeport. But I saw something today that I thought was particularly interesting in in dovetails with reconciliation, which is what the country's gotta do in 2021 2022. We gotta reconcile this shit because it's bigger fish to fry like, you know, China and the pandemic and global warming. One of these people at the Airport, who was coming home from the rally, is now on the do do not fly list. They're taking this group of domestic terrorists is how they're putting these American citizens who got whipped up into a frenzy by Trump and Giuliani. They're calling them domestic terrorists now. Some of them maybe. Maybe some of them are just, you know, got caught up in the wrong knob. They're on the do not finalist. This guy couldn't get home, and he's freaking out. And then I don't know if you saw Lindsay Graham with 20 of the people who are going home from the rallies chanting at him that this is never gonna end. And and that seemed like a very volatile situation. And and so the escalation continues. Go ahead, Freberg. David Friedberg (01:07:12): I'll tell you, like, it feels to me like this past week has been nothing but fuel for for both sides because there isn't a black and white circumstance here, and there isn't a black and white objective truth about, you know, what took place and what motivations were and and what the connections were. When I was sixteen years old, I went to a rave in downtown LA, And for New Year's Eve -- You did. -- and right before David Sacks (01:07:39): 16. David Friedberg (01:07:40): And and the rave got shut down. half an hour before midnight because there was so many legal drug being widely circulated for free. So you guys can watch videos of this on YouTube. It's called circa 1996. And we and everyone the cops came in, and they shut down the rave. It was outdoors in downtown LA, and we rioted. And so everyone lost the rave. And, like, I I would I participated. I think I'm past the the period where they can prosecute me. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:08:06): Oh my god. David Sacks (01:08:06): 7000. David Friedberg (01:08:07): Yeah. I participated in the Jason Calacanis (01:08:12): No. No. Don't say that. Don't say that on the show. You you were you witnessed. David Friedberg (01:08:15): I witnessed participated in the sense that I was there, and and I saw all this all this activity, but when you're standing next to these people, there was absolutely no thought around what to do and when and what the next step was. And I think if you watch the videos yeah. If you watch the videos of the capital, there's a lot of videos on YouTube that you can watch now, and you can the interviews of people coming out of the capital building. It's like, what were you doing in there? We were fighting for, you know, to to it's a revolution. Right? I mean, we're taking back the country, and then some people were saying, well, we're stop the certification of Joe Biden and other people were saying we're taking over the capital, there was no uniform sense of what the objective of the mission was. And there was many interpretations. If you look at all the parlor messages that have been copied and published now online, there were many interpretations about Trump's words and ridiculous words. Yeah. Parler. And so everyone has a different point of view. And I think that's the biggest challenge we're gonna have is we're all gonna try and, you know, get to the truth, and everyone's gonna cast this as a different point. They're gonna take what happened. They're gonna take some set of events that happened, and they're gonna highlight that this is what the connections were, and this is the reason why it happened. And this just creates fuel. It doesn't create you know, there there is not gonna be some objective outcome here where we're all gonna feel better. No one's gonna feel better at the end of the day. And and we're we've basically just thrown a whole bunch of gas on on a fire that was already running. Jason Calacanis (01:09:32): What do you think, Sat? David Friedberg (01:09:33): That was my point. It was just like it's all it's all great. Jason Calacanis (01:09:36): No. My behavior, I David Friedberg (01:09:36): mean. Yeah. Jason Calacanis (01:09:37): Crazy. Burned whatever photos you took. Sacks, what do you think of this VP you know, Pence and Trump and their relationship vis a vis pardons in this end game here because it does seem like Pence was upset, obviously, at what occurred and that Trump didn't even call to check on him and what was going on. And then a number of these people because there are queuing on people there. There are you know, I'm sure, Antifa people there, but it was mainly Trump, folks. They wanted to capture the VP. That was for some of them, the explicit purpose of this was to get the vice president and to hold him accountable and, you know, There are some speculations to to do bodily harm to him. What are your thoughts on that? David Sacks (01:10:23): I think one of the most insane aspects of what Trump did was the way that he denounced Pence, who has been the model of a loyal VP. I mean, certainly, the other side has criticized him for that for being sort of almost a toady. No one could have been more loyal than Pence to Trump for the last 4 years. And Pence simply told him, look. I don't have the power to cancel this vote of the electors. You know? And for that fact, you know, just for speaking Jason Calacanis (01:10:50): truth about that, Trump denounced him David Sacks (01:10:50): in front of this this mob. and and made him a target. And that is one of the more insane aspects of what Trump did. And you know, I truck no sympathy for that. Again, this was an act of of demagoguery, and this is an amenious end for for Trump's presidency. But but in terms of, like, you know, to I wanna go back to to what Friedberg just said about how he got kinda caught up in this in in that mob. I think that that was true, I think, for 90 something percent. of the people who are there is that they went to this Trump rally and protest, and it turned into a riot and they got caught up in it. And then in addition to that, there were, I think, hidden in that crowd, some serious agitators who were there to carry out violence of mayhem and had crazy plans. You know, hanging my pens, shooting Pelosi. I mean, there really were you know, a small number of those people. I don't know what the percentage is. Probably 1 or 2%. Jason Calacanis (01:11:56): What do you think -- It's David Sacks (01:11:57): not it's not the majority. Jason Calacanis (01:11:58): Sacks. What do you Chumov, what do you think will happen if they actually did shoot Pelosi or they did hang pens? Speaker 2 (01:12:03): No. I Jason Calacanis (01:12:04): don't. It is a possibility. David Sacks (01:12:05): But see, no. But see, that's threat inflation what you're doing right there, is. Exactly. What you're Jason Calacanis (01:12:10): what what you think is -- -- actual could have happened. 5 other people died. Speaker 2 (01:12:13): One of Jason Calacanis (01:12:14): the people who died was a senator. David Sacks (01:12:15): Yes. It it could have happened, but here's the problem. People are acting as if everything that could have happened but didn't actually happened, or may still happen at a later date. That that is what I call threat inflation, and it's the biggest tool the sensors have for seizing power Hey. Because it it it confuses people. -- Jason Calacanis (01:12:34): yourself, said these people had those plans, so we we do have to think about it. I mean, the first time David Sacks (01:12:38): -- David Friedberg (01:12:38): We had David Sacks (01:12:39): a whole lot of world Jason Calacanis (01:12:39): trade center, it didn't come down, Dave. But but -- The second time, it did come down. David Sacks (01:12:44): I I understand. But by constantly beating the drum of -- We Jason Calacanis (01:12:47): needed to inflate that threat, didn't we? David Sacks (01:12:49): But but by constantly beating the drum of these threads -- David Friedberg (01:12:53): No. No. No. Wait a minute. Stop. Stop. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:12:55): No. We we did not need to do anything. There is a national security apparatus who needed to do it. Their job isn't to inflate threats. Their job is to investigate apolitically get to the bottom of shit and fix it. They fucking failed on 911. Okay? We know that conclusively. So talking about it and amping people up, Jason, doesn't do anything. David Sacks (01:13:16): Yeah. I'm Jason Calacanis (01:13:17): not I'm I'm saying we need to follow what it was. David Sacks (01:13:21): A better a better example of threat inflation would be the Iraq war. Remember that? We gotta Speaker 2 (01:13:25): go -- Absolutely. David Sacks (01:13:26): -- stops the dominoes of WMD. That was threat inflation. Threat whipping people up you know, and making it the worst. Jason Calacanis (01:13:34): I'm just talking to 3 of my besties and asking you what you think about what would have happened if a senator died. I think it's it David Sacks (01:13:41): it didn't Jason Calacanis (01:13:41): close to happening, but it came close. It didn't David Sacks (01:13:44): come close. This this is the thing that is is convincing people. How many convinced people to give up liberties that they should want to hold on to Jason Calacanis (01:13:53): if they should guard you. I'm not I'm not saying everybody and and I'm not saying we need to beyond edge that this is gonna happen every day of our lives. We can't live in fear like that, but that's almost what happened. There are people who went there with that intent. David Sacks (01:14:08): What what I Chamath Palihapitiya (01:14:08): can use -- We don't we don't we don't we don't know any of this. Now we're now we're no better than anybody else. You had you had a maniac who was a vessel. He basically spilled over. There was a small frac of the people that probably came to that thing with ill intent, and then there was a large number of people that got pulled into the undertow. all of their lives will be ruined because of one individual. Okay? And at the end of the day, there is, in my opinion, one singular person to blame, Donald Trump, and then a handful of people who is accomplices. Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, Rudy Giuliani. We know who all of these characters are in this terrible play. And then there were all these people that were caught in the undertow. And I would rather just deal with it that way because it actually allows us to have some sympathy David Sacks (01:15:02): -- Jason Calacanis (01:15:03): I I felt sympathy -- -- person who straw that video. Yeah. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:15:07): So all all I'm saying is let's just get back to the core issue at hand. Something bad happened and then something really, really stupid that is actually even worse also happened. Jason Calacanis (01:15:18): And by that, you mean the banning of Trump on all platforms for all time? Chamath Palihapitiya (01:15:21): No. That that there is a there there was an arbitrariness to the decision making around free speech And I'm telling you guys, I know that you may think banning him from Twitter is so much lower than this attack on the capital, and I'm telling you it's not because the slippery slope of event event number 1 is so obvious. The prosecution of that is so obvious. The law is so completely clear. But we've shifted now into this realm where things are arbitrary, where things are gray. And it's a worldwide problem. There are a 180 some odd countries in the world. Right? That these sites operate in with a 180 different leaders multiplied by, you know, 2 or 3 political parties each. Like, there are now hundreds and hundreds of people who are trying to figure Jason Calacanis (01:16:12): out. -- chess games. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:16:14): It's so I just think we can now make -- Yeah. I just think we've made the problem so much worse. David Sacks (01:16:20): Yeah. I I I agree. And and, you know, earlier today, our heated conversation, extend it to one of our friends in our chat group who is telling us that, you know, there's a group of SaaS companies that are talking about deplatforming parlor as well from just using ordinary software as a service, and other sites like it. And, you know, and and and, again, it's a little bit like it's it's just like the censorship thing. Jason Calacanis (01:16:45): It's like a red scare. David Sacks (01:16:47): It's like a red scare. It's like a Chamath Palihapitiya (01:16:49): red scare. David Sacks (01:16:49): -- Jason Calacanis (01:16:49): podcast, the actual red scare David Sacks (01:16:51): that occurred. Yeah. Like Joe McCarthy. Exactly. Jason Calacanis (01:16:52): We're literally gonna go after anybody who writes a screenplay Speaker 2 (01:16:55): who -- Let me go to the communist Jason Calacanis (01:16:56): or social media meeting. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:16:57): But let David Friedberg (01:16:57): me ask you how much do you guy so I think that there's severely there there's a there's a severe amount of pressure on the leaders of these companies to do well by their employees and that employees are all Bay Area based, and Bay Area Base is a very heavy Democrat area. David Sacks (01:17:15): 90% Speaker 2 (01:17:16): plus. David Friedberg (01:17:16): And so so so this is the argument a lot of, you know, conservatives make, which is the tech companies in general as a result, act in the best interests of of of, you know, of the the liberal movements Sachs, and, Timoth, I mean and and Jason, do you guys think that it is an employee driven kind of set of actions that we're seeing? and that the motivation is is is in part to kind of appease the employee base of these companies? Chamath Palihapitiya (01:17:43): In fact, I think that more than 70% or 80% of the impetus for these last ditch efforts was internally driven, and this is where I think it's a complete crisis of leadership. Because if you had just gotten up in front of your employees and said, guys, if we do this, we will shift focus away from what actually is the problem. So I think the right solution is temporary ban. While we evaluate, while we strengthen policy like some bullshit fucking statement, and allow the legal court system to do their job. Instead, they acted like vigilantes in a way that basically appeased nobody and all of a sudden shifted the focus away from the person that all these hundreds of employees wanted to basically have, you know, have been found guilty and pointed to, one individual. They all wanted one individual to be held culpable and now he's not going to. David Sacks (01:18:37): A 100%. And and and and the proof of that is the fact that these employees have been calling for this policy for years. And now they finally got the excuse to do it. And so I agree. I mean, Jack is leading Twitter from behind. The mob runs Twitter Jason Calacanis (01:18:53): now. And they have for some time. And to Freebrook's point, it's like pad padme, I guess. David Sacks (01:19:00): The great the great American -- Jason Calacanis (01:19:01): Star Wars said this. David Sacks (01:19:01): -- I am Adala. who said Jason Calacanis (01:19:03): I asked something I would always said. This is how democracy dies to a thunderous applause. David Sacks (01:19:08): Well, yes. And, anyway, everybody's clapping over this censorship. Jason Calacanis (01:19:12): Lucas, I mean, the prequels are underrated. I have to say. And if you watch Revenge of the Sith, it's definitely David Sacks (01:19:18): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (01:19:18): I don't know the David Friedberg (01:19:18): last 3 were the best, Jason Calacanis (01:19:20): the last one were the worst, but anyway David Sacks (01:19:22): -- But can I hold Jason Calacanis (01:19:23): on a second? I just wanna go ahead. Saks. David Sacks (01:19:25): I'm just gonna add so so so Shamoff is a 100% right. There's one thing I would add to that, though. which is a just a few months ago, we had this senate hearing on section 230. Speaker 2 (01:19:34): Yes. David Sacks (01:19:34): And both Jack and Seth were berated by the senators most notably Senator Blumenthal, who was basically arguing for censorship. He was telling him, you gotta crack down. And so I also there's not this pressure from below. There's pressure from above. These guys know who's coming into power in January, and I think especially Zuck, who has to be terrified of being broken right now. He yes. Exactly. So he is thinking about how do I mollifying a piece these politicians who now have the power and can break me up, and I got news for him. It's too little too late. David Friedberg (01:20:10): It's too late. Too late. David Sacks (01:20:11): too too late. You're gonna get post open up anyway. And by the way, I now agree with it. I gotta say, you know, on previous pods I've defended, these tech companies, but I have come around. They are too powerful, and they are using their powerful their power in 2 indiscriminate away without power and the Chamath Palihapitiya (01:20:31): story can make the better. David Friedberg (01:20:32): But you didn't say that so let me just let me just point something out, Saks. You didn't say that before it affected the conservative movement's ability to have a voice. Right? Jason Calacanis (01:20:40): Hey. Don't Calacanis Saxx. Yep. No. David Friedberg (01:20:43): I mean, no. But I wanna point out, like, I mean, the the like and and and a lot of people are having this reaction, which is wanted to and I just wanna point this out. Once it affects you personally, that's when you take issue with the way that the system is operating right now. You know, a lot of people make make fun of this, but a few months ago or weeks ago, there's a porn website called Pornhub, and Visa, Mastercard, and Discover stopped processing payments for them because the New York Times put out an opinion article about -- Hold on. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:21:10): David. David. How how do you spell that? p o -- Oh, no. Alright. No. We're not just auto Chiponte about 30 URLs from You just autofilled 30 URLs. Go to your bookmark. Yeah. Go to your bookmark. Speaker 2 (01:21:20): Go down David Friedberg (01:21:21): to number 2. And and so and and I I wanna just point out, like, like, the the Electronic Frontier Foundation was the only organization that really made us think about this this behavior from these monopoly payment processing network stepping in and blocking their ability to run as a business, not on any legal grounds and not on any grounds based on some court making a decision of what was David Sacks (01:21:40): -- -- David Friedberg (01:21:41): grounds. It it it was war grounds, and it was an opinion piece And suddenly, everyone's waking up because now Trump is being silenced. And -- And this Jason Calacanis (01:21:47): is and this is why -- No. No. Speaker 2 (01:21:48): No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. Jason Calacanis (01:21:49): No. No. No. I like Bitcoin. -- Bitcoin. David Sacks (01:21:50): You're gonna -- JC holiday respond to that. So So first of all, porn has always been in a separate category. The Stream Court has said that you can regulate it according to community standards. And so I support the ability of Facebook or Twitter or whatever, to regulate it according to their standards. That's perfectly consistent with the first amendment. I personally am not that upset about Trump per se being censored. I'm upset about this new vast policy of censorship, including deep out for me not just Trump, Speaker 2 (01:22:15): but partly. I mean, David Sacks (01:22:15): you're talking about millions of people And the fact that they're conservative is not the reason. If this was happening to a liberal app, I promise you I'd be acting the exact same way. For me, Free speech is the most cherished value that we have. It's the first amendment in the constitution. It's the first right in the bill of rights. That's the thing that has me upset. this is not a partisan thing. Jason Calacanis (01:22:38): And so to your point, Freeport, you asked us, what do we think is going on here at these companies? I think there's 3 things. And we just heard David Sacks (01:22:46): 2 Jason Calacanis (01:22:46): of them and and and Zach stole my thunder because I was gonna say, I think that Zach, who I believe I'm very cynical about, I think he is thinking, how do I appease the left now after having appease Trump for all these years? Now Trump's out of office. Now how do I appease the left? Okay. I have to ban him for life. And remember Trump was Zach was the first to give a lifetime ban, not Jack. So Zach, who's previously been in Trump's corner is now not. The 3rd factor so the first factor is obviously the employee's second factor is getting broken up and appeasing all these centers. I think the third one is I think that there could be information that we are not privy to, that they are privy to, that mean that is leading them to overreact here. David Friedberg (01:23:36): No. Because they David Sacks (01:23:37): -- David Friedberg (01:23:37): I'm gonna disagree. Yeah. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:23:38): I'm gonna disagree too. Yeah. It would it would not have come out in that way. It would have said we are, you know, pausing the account or suspending the account, it wouldn't have been this next step of saying you're the platform forever. Jason Calacanis (01:23:51): think in Jack's Chamath Palihapitiya (01:23:52): It would have been this area. Speaker 2 (01:23:53): If it Chamath Palihapitiya (01:23:54): if it was a real security issue no. It was not. The the other thing I'll say, can I just say one thing, which is that I've been in the bowels of these companies. I help build 1. My team was probably the most instrumental in getting one of these things to real mega scale. I think that these companies are complicated enough that everybody needs to realize that it is beyond the capability of any one person to manage in a reasonable way. And these businesses are they're too broad based. They exist in too many countries with too many different standards. that ultimately all comes back to 1 unified code base. If Facebook was actually a 182 different products on a country by country basis and Twitter was the same, there would actually be a path here. Right? And each one had a country level CEO that actually had power. Maybe this could be different, but the problem is that if all roads go back to Menlo Park in San Francisco and you're putting the power in the hands of 15 or 20,000 people over a multimillion line code base, It's an impossible task for even the smartest of the smart people. These companies need to get broken up. Jason Calacanis (01:25:00): I think we're all gonna agree on that. I'm not I do you guys are missing a piece David Friedberg (01:25:04): of information. -- for another point for another time. Jason Calacanis (01:25:05): You guys are missing a piece of information. I'm just gonna read to you what from the Washington Post. Twitter specifically raised the possibility that Trump's recent tweets could mobilize his supporters to commit acts of violence around president-elect Joe Biden's inauguration an analysis that experts saw as a major expansion in the company's approach. And so they specifically cited that. They said they were and and the tweet that they were concerned about this one that got taken down very quickly, American patriots will not be disrespect or treat unfairly in any way, shape, or form. And then he announced right after that that he's not going to be an inauguration. So what Twitter believes is that that was some sort of a dog whistle to go do violence at the inauguration. And that's what they said in their lifetime ban is they felt Trump was doing that. So that maybe And Speaker 2 (01:25:48): and then David Friedberg (01:25:48): just point out, you you could interpret it that way, and you could also interpret it the other way. And that that's David Sacks (01:25:52): -- Jason Calacanis (01:25:52): Which is the problem of Trump. Yeah. Like, he knows how the problems David Friedberg (01:25:55): it's the problem of using judge Right. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:25:56): And and not yeah. Trevor, can I ask you a question? Would you be supportive of platform level open architecture? So, for example, that you know, the messaging infrastructure that supports Facebook and Twitter have to be unified in a way. that there is David Sacks (01:26:13): -- David Friedberg (01:26:13): That was originally called like, there was RSS. I mean, there's a lot of open communication protocols that exist out there. I mean, Signal has made an attempt at doing this as well with with their approach and open sourcing every time. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:26:25): I'm just think I'm just asking what is the technical solution, if not to break them up, to make them more predictable? portability of your profile? David Friedberg (01:26:33): I I think you can pass the law. I mean, you know, like, we do have a government. We can pass the law. So you can pass a law that says, if you're gonna operate a communication platform, here are the rules you have to abide by, and here's how you have to and now you're a regulated entity. and you could regulate them and you could even create a regulatory body to oversee them and make sure that standards of free speech are applied universally and and in an absolute way. You know? And -- You Jason Calacanis (01:26:57): give them a chance to correct. Right? David Friedberg (01:26:58): Which way -- To your to your point, Shamak, given that it may be so technically difficult to break them up, that may be one of the points of one of the paths of resolution. And we're gonna find out the next 2 to 3 years because I don't think that anyone on the left or the right likes Big Tech, as they call it, and the way it's operating today. But I think technically having been in these organizations, it is impossible to break them up. And I will say something controversial. I also think consumers benefit from the scale that they operate at. And I don't think that they should be broken up I think that there's economic value to having Google be at the scale of debt and Amazon being at the scale of debt and Facebook being at scale of debt. And it doesn't harm consumers. I think it helps in aggregate in terms of pricing and service availability, but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't be regulated in a way that everyone can kinda feel like there's some absolute universal standard. applied. But I I I know I know I'm in the minority on that. David Sacks (01:27:48): Yeah. I would say my my view about antitrust used to be that it was all about consumer harm, and I've actually come around to more of the the liberal point of view on this, which is it can't just be about consumer harm. It's also gotta be about power. and not just market power, but democratic power. And the fact of the matter is these companies have just gotten too large and too powerful. They have too much influence in our democracy. and it's incompatible with, you know, a country. Democracy. Jason Calacanis (01:28:14): So David Friedberg (01:28:14): what if they got regulated what if they got regulated like a utility, Saks? like, we have regulatory bodies for utilities for both telecommunications and for power and and energy. What if we had a regulatory body for Internet services? David Sacks (01:28:25): Well, yeah, I mean, 1st and foremost, I want an online bill of rights. You know, I wanna know what my rights are online that these tech this cartel of Technopolis cannot take away from me because something is alright if it only if it if it can't be taken away. And right now, it can all be taken away. you know, your online identity, your right to participate in the public conversation can be taken away with no explanation by these companies. We have no rights. And, like, what would you do if your online presence is taken away? Like, that is a huge part of the modern world. Jason Calacanis (01:28:58): What is going on in Trump's mind do you think right now? having lost his ability to communicate with a billion people. You know? Like, he had this ability to control the conversation, and now he's mean, I don't even know if people will put them on air. David Friedberg (01:29:12): That's why I think something is brewing with him. You know? He he is not gonna sit tight and and wind out the last 10 days here. You know, whether it's some ad hoc press conference he calls tomorrow and just rants on TV, or he tries to declare some you know, pass some law without congress's approval or does something. I mean, this guy has never proven himself to be able to sit quietly and to not be in the spotlight or to be told that he's wrong. And all three of those things are being imposed upon him right now, so he is squirming like a like a cat being put in the bath. Jason Calacanis (01:29:48): Also, it seems like they're doing some last ditch stuff Pompeo lifted restrictions for US Taiwan contracts. I don't know if you saw that. That was a little bit of an interesting thing that was slid in the last couple of days. little little jab to the Chinese on the way out. Where do you think Saxx last 10 days? David Sacks (01:30:07): Hey, guys. The -- -- ago. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:30:08): The zip tie guy apparently got arrested. Jason Calacanis (01:30:11): Yeah. I wanna know what's going on with him. I mean, these guys having zip ties with him is just No. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:30:16): But this is incredible that how systematically they've been able to basically get, you know, a lot of these folks. I mean, Jason, you're Jason Calacanis (01:30:23): a b a i. I will David Friedberg (01:30:24): tell you I will tell you the one thing we got going for us is the deep state. I mean, thank god for, you know, folks who are loyal to the Coddess and to the rule of law in this country. And these FBI is incredible and are, you know, are the the the the the civil servants who have been career civil servants in government as much as we make fun of the bureaucracy and the bullshit that goes on. It's great to be an American and to know that there's you know, that there's these these folks out there looking out for for David Sacks (01:30:49): -- Jason Calacanis (01:30:49): This is like being in the final stages of a stress test. It's like the final David Sacks (01:30:53): -- David Friedberg (01:30:53): Well, by the way, David Sacks (01:30:54): as I predicted on the pass pod. I said there would be major, major arrests. You know, everyone was saying that that that these protests are being treated with kid gloves compared to BLM, and I was like, just wait. is gonna be arrests. And sure enough, they're rounding up these people quick. A lot of charges are gonna Speaker 2 (01:31:09): be -- I David Friedberg (01:31:09): think the most genius thing was I don't know who who said it was a honeypot, but the the Parler post Speaker 2 (01:31:14): Yeah. David Friedberg (01:31:15): That said -- That's me. You know, it's incredible Saks. But, like, Saks pointed this out, so I'll give him full credit for this. But there was a Parler post where it was, like, the the title of the person was, like, you know, office of the the president's pardon attorney. And, you know, since since Send me your name and phone number and email if you wanna be parted for what happened in Chamath Palihapitiya (01:31:33): the capital. And so it's like well, again, yeah. And name the crime you committed. So we thought Yes. I just set Jason Calacanis (01:31:40): up the up site called capitalriots amnesty.org. David Friedberg (01:31:44): So cheers. Jason Calacanis (01:31:45): Please go to capital riots amnesty.org. Yeah. And tell us what you did. And if you outline each of the crimes you outlined that you did, you will get amnesty for those crimes. But you have to outline in detail what you did and give us any photographic in video proof you David Sacks (01:31:57): have of your crimes. The the reason I suspected that was a honeypot is because Jimmy Carter parted, you know, after the Vietnam War, he pardoned everyone who had dodged the draft as part of the Vietnam War. He did that as a blanket pardon without naming any names. So It seemed very suspect to me that Trump would need individual names and and crimes to be able to pardon them. Jason Calacanis (01:32:18): And that was ceremonial. Right? That was, like, a healing a wound move by Jimmy Carter. It wasn't David Sacks (01:32:23): -- David Friedberg (01:32:23): No one was going after that. Jason Calacanis (01:32:24): because we weren't prosecuting those David Sacks (01:32:26): -- Jason Calacanis (01:32:26): Sure. -- via on vets. David Sacks (01:32:27): Sure. And so but it was never litigated, so it became a precedent. I think I I do think that Trump probably I mean, this would be a very interesting court case, but I do think he could issue a blanket pardon in everyone on the mall that day. It's possible. I'm not saying he should. I think it's a terrible Jason Calacanis (01:32:43): that would get to our early point of escalation as opposed to de escalation. David Friedberg (01:32:47): Zach, being our our lawyer and our historian, you know, what is the the origin of the presidential pardon. How is that even legal? And how did we end up in a place in this country where any law could be superseded by the president telling you it's okay for you to break this law? and pardon you after the fact or even before the fact. David Sacks (01:33:05): It's it's it's it exists because it's in the constitution. The framers of the you should put it in there. I I don't know what their thinking was. I've never really studied that. It is a almost a residue of or a a vastigial monarchical power that somehow was included in the conversation. Right? I mean, like, Jason Calacanis (01:33:24): the intention of it, my understanding was to correct injustices that occurred so that it would be a backstop against somebody who was David Friedberg (01:33:33): By the judgment of the one guy. Jason Calacanis (01:33:34): by the judgement of the David Sacks (01:33:35): 1 -- Speaker 2 (01:33:36): Outside of David Friedberg (01:33:36): the courts, it's like crazy that, like, you know, we we have a court system. David Sacks (01:33:39): -- Jason Calacanis (01:33:39): on tradition. It relies on, you know, people buying into America. Right? And I and I think that's the Trump stress test, and I can't wait till we don't talk about this guy anymore. David Friedberg (01:33:51): I'd love to see an amendment getting rid of the the pardon powers. I I don't know. I never feel good about it. Well, they are thinking about David Sacks (01:33:56): -- Speaker 2 (01:33:56): The court David Friedberg (01:33:56): the court should be where you adjudicate the, you know, appeals and such, but Alright. Jason Calacanis (01:34:00): Well, listen. We've beaten this today. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:34:01): Can I can I end on something? Jason Calacanis (01:34:03): Let's end on something David Sacks (01:34:04): -- Jason Calacanis (01:34:04): I -- uplifting. David Sacks (01:34:05): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (01:34:05): I took a bunch of specs public at the end of last year. And on Friday, one of the vehicles that I'm the CEO have merged with Sofi. And I wanna tell you something about the CEO of Sofi, Anthony Noto. And I think he'll be okay because he shared this story a couple times, but his parents got divorced when he was three years old. He grew up on welfare, food stamps, sort of free lunch kids until middle school. went to the the West Point. Was it all star Stock analysts was the CFO of the NFL, was a CFO of Twitter than the COO of Twitter. And you guys know my story, but, you know, ended up in the United States after growing up in Canada, after escaping a civil war I grew up on welfare and I said to Anthony, what are the odds that 2 kids who grew up that way could have ended up in a moment where we were part of doing something really amazing that, you know, for each of us was a meaningful accomplishment. And he said only in America. And only in America. This is David Sacks (01:35:26): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (01:35:26): Let's keep that dream alive. -- single best fucking country in the goddamn world. David Sacks (01:35:30): 100%. Jason Calacanis (01:35:32): And -- -- fighting for. And it's worth having these debates, and I think it's worth doing the pod. And so I'd like to suggest Chamath Palihapitiya (01:35:37): that -- -- constitute the pod going. Stop, Jason. The American Constitution is the most incredible fucking document because that is the foundation -- -- system. David Sacks (01:35:48): -- Chamath Palihapitiya (01:35:49): all of these things are built. It's just the most amazing thing. So I am really glad that we're all having this conversation. And I would just say, guys, keep the faith. Let's put the light back on Donald Trump, I would have as much sympathy as possible for as many of those folks in the capital Maybe not the folks that were intending to do harm, maybe not zip tie guy, but there's a lot of other people that are that just got caught in the undertow. I would try to have sympathy for them. and I would really don't lose focus now people, Donald Trump, Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, stay fucking vigilant. David Friedberg (01:36:29): I would also -- Love you, guys. Think about doing something for someone else this week. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:36:33): Yeah. Yeah. And that's all that's all do something nice. Exactly. Yeah. I love you guys. Alright. Jason Calacanis (01:36:37): Love you, Beth. Love you, Saxx. Chamath Palihapitiya (01:36:39): Love you, Saxx. Love you, Saxxico. Come on, Sassy. Say it. God damn it. This is the time. Speaker 2 (01:36:43): Saying it. Back at you. You're gonna Chamath Palihapitiya (01:36:44): say it. David Sacks (01:36:45): Back at you. Speaker 2 (01:36:45): Oh my god. Jason Calacanis (01:36:46): Back at you. Speaker 2 (01:36:49): We'll let your winners ride. Rainman, David, Saturday. And it Jason Calacanis (01:36:52): said, we Speaker 2 (01:36:57): open sources to the fans David Sacks (01:37:05): Besty's Jason Calacanis (01:37:09): our dog Speaker 2 (01:37:13): a notice in your driveway. We should all Jason Calacanis (01:37:14): just get a room and just have it Speaker 2 (01:37:21): think you, George, because they're always useless. It's like this, like, sexual tension, but we just need to release them out. Jason Calacanis (01:37:27): What? You're the -- BP. What? You're David Sacks (01:37:30): a thief. Jason Calacanis (01:37:31): What? Where did you get Murphy's artifact? Speaker 2 (01:37:34): I'm doing all this.