- Sup, ya beautiful bastards.
Hope you've had a fantastic Monday, welcome back
to the Philip DeFranco show, and let's just jump into it.
And the first thing we're gonna talk about today is,
is this story that you know, and it's a social media story,
a business story, a mental health story.
And, today it's specifically around Instagram.
And if you hadn't heard, Instagram's testing a new feature
where they hide the number of likes on a post.
They've been piloting this
in Australia, Ireland, and Canada.
It's also been rumored that one of the next places
to participate in this test would be the United States,
or at least a small portion of the population there.
And in fact, what we'd ended up seeing over the weekend,
is that Instagram CEO Adam Masseri, officially announced
the long rumored plan at a wired tech event.
[Philip] And he followed it up on twitter saying,
heads up! We've been testing making likes private
on Instagram in a number of countries this year.
We're expanding those tests to include a small portion
of people in the United States next week.
Looking forward to the feedback.
And as far as why this CEO says that they're testing
this, at the wired 25 conference.
[Philip] He said, it's about young people.
The idea is to try to depressurize Instagram.
Make it less of a competition, and give people more space
to focus on connecting with people that they love,
things that inspire them.
With him adding, we will make decisions
that hurt the business in the short term,
if they're good for people's well-being
and health, because it has to be good for the business
over the long-term.
Now, very quickly to clear up any confusion,
because I've seen a lot, I wouldn't even call it
misreporting, it's just people saying stuff on the internet.
And people going, oh I can't believe that's real.
Instagram is not getting rid of likes altogether.
User will still be able to view their likes themselves,
they just won't be displayed publicly anymore.
And the reason that's important for a lot of creators
out there, is engagement is key.
And I think that's an important thing to know,
whether you're an established person, or you're someone
who's trying to garner and audience.
Having the ability to see your own likes, if you're trying
to build something up, it allows you to know what's hitting,
what's missing.
Or creators with brand deals, right, you're working with
other companies, you still have your numbers right.
The analytics don't just go away.
Also, kind of regarding this conversation of
business vs. mental health.
For me personally, I think one of the most notable people
to speak out on this was Kim Kardashian-West.
(mumbles) has a massive Instagram following, her posts
get anywhere between 1 to 3 million likes.
She has a lot of business through Instagram.
And ahead of this official announcement she said,
as far as mental health, I think taking the likes away,
and taking that aspect away from Instagram, would be
really beneficial for people.
And adding, I know the Instagram team has been having
a bunch of conversations with people to get everyone's take
on that and they're taking it really seriously,
and that makes me happy.
Also of note, on Saturday we saw Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey
praise this move, by retweeting Mosseri's tweet
and adding, great step.
But, not everyone was happy.
For example, you had rapper Cardi B, arguing that
it's actually the comments section that should be
a bigger concern.
Saying in a video posted to Instagram that she noticed
toxic behavior increasing on the platform after users
were given to like and reply to comments.
- [Cardi] If, anything is affecting Instagram right now,
I really feel it's the way that the comments have,
have been done or have been changing these past few years.
Because I feel like people been saying
the most weirdest shit.
Been starting the craziest arguments, been starting to
race bait, all because of comments, because they want,
they want to get to the top.
They want to get the most reactions.
- [Philip] We also saw Nicki Minaj chiming in on this news,
vowing to stop using Instagram altogether.
She also argued the move might be bad for
independent artists who use Instagram
for power and exposure.
Also suggesting among other things, that Instagram
might be hiding likes to manipulate what posts users see
on their feed.
I've also seen other people claiming that Instagram might be
doing this, to make it so that advertisers start working
directly with Instagram more, rather than just sponsoring
people based off of the numbers they can see publicly.
Right but then you get into this conversation of like
what's the intent there.
I will say, on a personal note, I think if that is the goal,
that that it will not be that effective.
Once, again it appears that all the analytics
will still exist on the backend.
So if a creator wants to work with an advertiser, it's just
sharing that information.
But ultimately, as far as my opinion on this topic, I I have
found myself leaning more and more in the favor of
not showing, at least publicly, the number of likes.
And I think the fact that it's actually taken me this long
to to be of this opinion, I think shows, how much, even if
I try not to, how much, of my value, and my self-worth,
and the validation is tied to these public numbers.
Right, and that can't be healthy, but I'm also
self-aware enough to know I exist in kind of this weird
different bubble.
I try to stand grounded, and connect in my roots.
But obviously my life now is so much disconnected from
who I was when I was 18 and 20.
And so that's why with this story, I wanna pass
that question off to you.
What are your thoughts regarding this specific situation,
and kind of just the hiding of likes in general.
Are you for it, against it, are you somewhere in between.
What do you see are the pros and the cons.
Ending all thoughts on this, I'd love to see in those
comments down below.
Then, actually kind of connected, in a loose way.
We should briefly talk about KSI vs Logan Paul 2,
it finally happened over the weekend.
And I say that it's connected, well one because it's
this whole crazy spectacle that just happened thanks to
social media.
But also two, in the build up towards the actual fight
what was one of the weirdest things on da zone, not da zen.
Even though it's spelled that way.
They literally did a side by side comparison of how many
concurrent viewers their YouTube live streams had.
It was kind of a weird thing to show, they even ended up
asking KSI about it, as both streams were showing.
But also not fully surprising because in addition to
you know, I think, some people craved to see those numbers,
to compare.
But also I feel like they were showcasing those numbers
to kind of explain to actual boxing fans, like hey
this is why this is happening.
There were likely way way way more eyes on the
actual title defenses that served
as the lead up to the two YouTubers fighting each other.
[Philip] Which, if somehow you haven't seen
up till this point, KSI ended up beating Logan Paul.
Which, some people found controversial, the fight ended up
going on all six rounds, went to the judges scorecards.
Which, is drastically affected by a two point penalty
that Logan Paul accrued.
At least during a section of the fight where Logan Paul
hits KSI with an uppercut, he then hits him a second time
while also seeming to hold his head.
And then as KSI was dropping to the ground, right he was
a defenseless fighter, Logan Paul tried to strike again.
And as the ref pointed out after the match, there is no
sort of 12 to 6 punch in boxing.
Logan Paul after the fight saying that he would contest
that decision, right, he was saying why
wasn't I given a warning.
The ref in the post fight interview, I think gave a
really proper explanation,
I'll link to that video down below.
And I mean really just watching the fight, Logan Paul has
no one to blame but himself.
But I'll also say too, there's something that also seems
incredibly appropriate, that these two,
essential first time pros, boxing as the main event.
That fight, ended up being decided by a point penalty
given due to a break down in the boxing technical skills.
But hey, well technically KSI won, Logan Paul lost.
The real winner was probably da zone.
They've come out, and while not giving specifics, said
that this event was a huge success for them.
I mean just looking at the number of people that were
commenting live on social media, while it was happening.
The, the highlights in the post fight interviews.
Like what the numbers are for those.
I imagine that it was genuinely a big win for them, which
I will say and this is no shade.
If you bought a subscription specifically for this fight,
this is a friendly reminder to cancel that subscription.
But hey, that's ultimately the story.
It will be interesting to see what happens from here, right.
Is this not, I guess not a one and done, but a two and done.
Will we see new creators doing something similar, or
was this kind of just lighting in a bottle.
I don't know, but if there is one final note that
I can hit on with this story.
I think regardless of who you were rooting for to win this
fight, I personally have to give both of these guys props.
One, it takes a lot of guts to put your image and your body
on the line like this.
But also, two and obviously this extends to the
KSI Joe Weller fight, that came before this whole thing.
But these two guys from the internet successfully
made such a spectacle that the mainstream
had to pay attention.
Like it or not, like them, or not.
This is a game changing moment, and we're seeing moments
like this, and obviously slightly more different avenues
happening more and more, and I think it's an incredibly
exciting time for the space.
But, that said, that's where I'm gonna end this one.
And of course pass the question off to you.
What are you thoughts around the fight, the spectacle,
any and all things connected to this story.
But from that, I wanna share some stuff I love
today and today brought to you by phil.ting.com
So when it comes to cellphone service, a lot of people
pay for things they don't actually use.
Right, for example if you're often around stable wifi
or you just don't need a lot a cellular data,
why pay for a set monthly data plan.
- [Philip] And with ting you just pay a fair price,
for the talk, text, and data that you actually use.
So if you use less one month, you pay less.
There's no contracts, overage fees or
any other carrier tricks.
It is just fair.
And you can always bring your phone number to ting too,
there's no need to get a brand new one.
And with ting you get their fantastic nation wide
LTE coverage, coast to coast.
And, ting customers pay on average just 23 dollars per month
for their one device.
But yeah, the main point here, head on over to phil.ting.com
Check your phone's compatibility right now and
get 25 dollars off your bill.
Plus, just for you beautiful bastards you can enter an
exclusive giveaway for a chance to win a new moto g7
and ting swag pack.
But you need to hurry, because that giveaway ends this week.
But main point, click the link, check it out, and enjoy.
And the first bit of awesome today is if you didn't see
John Oliver's piece on slap lawsuits.
I, one, highly recommend you watch the whole piece.
But, two, if you only have five minutes, go to about
21 minutes into the video.
- [Philip] He, and his team deliver the, the most
overly produced, fuck you, I've ever seen.
It really makes like any other thing they've done
seem low rent gimmick.
Then the infographic show gave a shocking
psychic predictions that actually came true.
Then we got this really awesome video on neutron stars.
We got the official teaser for Scoob, the official trailer
for Fantasy Island, Tiffany Young's
tour bus travel routines.
And if you want to see the full versions of everything
I just shared, the secret link of the day, or really
anything at all, links as always are in the description
down below.
Then in what companies are people angry at today news,
we had Uber, and that's because in a new interview,
the CEO of the company is being pressed on Saudi Arabia,
and Jamal Khashoggi.
For those unaware, according to reports, Saudi Arabia
is the fifth largest investor in Uber.
Also the head of the
sovereign wealth fund is on Uber's board.
And while getting pressed, regarding this whole situation
in general and the specific person, we see this happen.
- [Interviewer] He represents and works for a government,
which you believe had a role in the murder of a journalist
who was a U.S. resident.
Should that person be on the board of a U.S. company?
- [Dara] I think that government,
said that they made a mistake.
- Well they made a mistake and somebody's dead.
- Well listen it's, it's a serious mistake, we've made
mistakes too right, with self driving.
And we stopped driving and we're recovering
from that mistake.
So I think that people make mistakes, it doesn't mean
that they can never be forgiven.
I think they've taken it seriously, and from my standpoint--
- The CIA agent suggests that they made a mistake and it was
an oversight, like self driving that was basically
a bad sensor, correct.
The CIA suggested that the crowned prince had a role
in ordering an assassination, it's a different thing.
You guys didn't intentionally run somebody over.
- I didn't read that part of the CIA report,
you're obviously deeper in it.
- And, you know, after that the interviewer and also
people having seen that clip were like yeah those are
two completely different things.
Right, the self driving car wasn't set to
kill a person on the road.
Whereas with Jamal Khashoggi, that was the organized,
purposeful, ordered, brutal death, of an individual.
Now reportedly following that interview, he called
soon after to express regret about his word choice.
And today, we saw the Uber CEO tweet, there's no forgiving
or forgetting what happened to Jamal Khashoggi and I was
wrong to call it a mistake.
And then saying as I said after the interview,
I said something in the moment I don't believe.
Our investors have long known my views here and I'm sorry
I wasn't clear on Axios.
And, my personal reaction to this is it just seems like
more empty words.
All right it appears that he's backtracking on his words,
but where's any action.
Right because the main pressing point, the criticism
regarding Uber before the CEO decided
to just blur it out something stupid.
What was regarding their action, or rather inaction
regarding Saudi Arabia.
All right so following this we saw a number of people
saying that they were going to boycott Uber.
That began a trend and then more people saw the video.
Yeah, ultimately that's the story, it's one part CEO says
stupid thing and backtracks.
And second part, it's amazing what a few
hundred million dollars will do to your thoughts
and opinions when it comes to the dismemberment of
a fucking human being.
But also while there is all this anger around Uber,
it should be noted that this is not an Uber only issue.
As far as the blind eyes go, whether it be a company
or a government.
And then, let's talk about this huge news coming out of
Bolivia around the Presidential elections and Evo Morales.
We actually talked about Morales a couple of weeks ago
when he won his fourth term as the countries president.
Although I should say, won his fourth term.
Now if you want the full full detailed version of that,
I'll link to our coverage down below.
But, here, to kind of give you a quick recap and
an understanding.
Morales, who's in the movement for socialism party has
been president since 2006.
While the Bolivian presidency is limited to two terms
in office, in 2013 Morales pushed for a third term.
Following that we saw Bolivia's highest court then saying
that he could in fact, run for a third term.
Then, in 2016 we saw Morales holding a national referendum,
asking if the country could
get rid of the term limit altogether.
But, there he lost.
However, he then went back to Bolivia's highest court,
and they scrapped term limits.
Right and so following this you get some people uneasy
that Morales decided to run for a fourth term because
people were worrying that he was trying to hold onto power.
But also to know here, Morales has been a
pretty popular president, he's been credited with bringing
massive economic growth to Bolivia.
As well, a significantly reducing poverty and inequality,
but when it finally came to last months election.
We saw something very weird.
Originally results showed Morales in a neck and neck race
with his opponent Carlos Mesa.
In fact the race was so close, the country was expected to
hold a run off election, but the all of a sudden.
Results stopped coming in, we didn't see anymore until
almost 24 hours later.
And when reporting finally started back up, the results
showed Morales beating Mesa by just enough
to avoid a run off.
And so following, you know, what appears to be a
very weird circumstance.
You had Mesa and a ton of citizens calling this
obvious election fraud.
You then saw massive protests in the street, some peaceful
other people setting fires to government buildings
and knocking over statues.
At the same time the Organization of American states
announced that it would audit the vote, with
Morales saying that if the O-A-S found evidence of fraud,
he would then agree to a second round of voting.
And, that brings us to the updates because yesterday we saw
the O-A-S finally release it's report.
And in this report, auditors had said that they had found
clear manipulation of votes.
With auditors going on to say the voting transmission system
had not been 100 percent monitored.
The O-A-S also saying that at one point information was
redirected, therefore auditors couldn't have certainty
over the results.
- [Philip] Auditors also saying that good practices
were not applied to the official vote-counting, that
because the system allowed someone to take control of
parts of the process when they were supposed to be secure.
Auditors even saying that at one point the system was
frozen and fixed in a way that violated
essential principles of security.
And ultimately the O-A-S concluded that 78 of the
total 333 evaluated vote counts from polling stations
showed irregularities.
With auditors noting that the last 5 percent of votes were
especially unusual because it showed a significant increase
from Morales and a sharp decrease from Mesa.
Following the release from that audit, we saw reports of
celebrations in some areas, but also reports of protests
continuing to ramp up.
In fact there were also actually reports of protestors had
ransacked and burned the homes of some of the senior members
or Morales socialism party.
Morales' home was also ransacked, in fact there were reports
that the brother of one senior official was also kidnapped.
And in fact by yesterday afternoon,
Mexico's foreign secretary said that the Mexican embassy
in La Paz was sheltering 20 of Morales' senior officials.
With Mexico also offering Morales political asylum.
Yesterday we also saw heads of Bolivia's armed forces and
national police calling on Morales to step down.
And later that same day, we saw Morales do just that.
He resigned, though notably here he said it was to
ease the violence in the street.
Saying, we resign because I don't want to see
any more families attacked by instruction of Mesa and
opposition leader Luis Fernando Camacho.
This is not a betrayal to social movements,
the fight continues.
We are the people and thanks to this political union,
we have freed Bolivia, we leave this homeland free.
Mesa and Camacho have achieved their objective.
Now stop burning the houses of my brothers and sisters.
And also saying on twitter the coo mongers are
destroying the rule of law.
Also saying reportedly that a police officer had publicly
called for his arrest.
But on that note we also later saw the head of the
national police deny that any warrants had
been issued for Morales.
Also on the other side of this, you had Mesa tweet:
to Bolivia, it's people, the young, the women, to
the heroism of peaceful resistance, I will never forget
this unique day, the end of tyranny.
I'm grateful to the Bolivian people for
this historic lesson, long live Bolivia.
Also reportedly telling reporters, we shall not permit
the ex-president to use the excuse of a coup.
This was not a coup.
Which that word coup, there's been a lot of debate around.
And after Morales resigned we saw people chanting
yes we could, and setting off fireworks.
(chanting)
That is reportedly police also withdrew from the
city of La Paz.
Also like earlier, we saw other instances of violence
and some people looted stores, other people started
what appeared to be politically motivated fires.
You know we've seen a number of reactions from
different countries.
For example, in addition to offering Morales
political asylum, the Mexican president called
the situation regrettable.
This is where a minister echoing Morales
calling this a coup.
Like Mexico, Nicaragua came to Morales' defense with
it's president saying, the government of Nicaragua
denounces and strongly condemns the coup d'etat
that was realized today.
Also Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro calling this
a coup and also saying that rallies would be helped
to defend quote the life of the Bolivian native people,
victims of racism.
But, at the same time we've seen countries like Brazil
welcoming a new note.
Also people like Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the labor party
in the United Kingdom saying, to see Morales who along
with a powerful movement has brought so much social progress
forced from office by the military is appalling.
I condemn this coup against the Bolivian people and stand
with them for democracy, social justice, and independence.
We've also seen different reactions from the United States.
For example we saw Ilhan Omar and A-O-C calling this a coup.
Also saying that the Bolivian people deserve
free, fair, and peaceful elections.
But then on the other side of that you have
secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, commending the O-A-S and
supporting a new election.
We also saw Trump today say in a statement, after nearly
14 years and his recent attempt to override the
Bolivian constitution and the will of the people, Morales'
departure preserves democracy and paves the way for the
Bolivian people to have their voices heard.
Calling this a significant moment for democracy.
Right but with all of that being said, one of
the main questions is well what now.
Will we see a new vote, who will now lead Bolivia.
Right you had Morales who actually didn't finish
his third term, following his resignation.
You also saw his vice president, the senate president,
the president of the chamber of deputies, and
the first vice president of the senate also resign.
All right so that is the first, second, third, and fourth
in the line of succession.
Which on the note of succession, the next in line
is actually the second vice president of the senate,
Jeanine Anez.
Who, said that she would step up as a
transitional president, but she also needs a quorum
from the national assembly.
However, Morales' movement for socialism party controls
both houses and Anez has been described as
strongly anti-Morales.
All right so there's that part of the mess.
And as far as a new election goes, under the Bolivian
constitution elections must be held within 90 days
of a constitutional crisis.
Right and should she get the transfer of power, Anez
said that she would work to hold that election.
And here, there's also been a slight question of if
Morales would be apart of those re-elections, but
yesterday he suggested that he might not.
At the same time Morales has reportedly hiding out.
But we've still seen him posting to twitter saying things
like, you've never abandoned me and I will
never abandon you.
And also urging supporters to resist forming
a transitional government.
But yeah, ultimately that is where we are with this story.
It's gonna be very interesting to see what happens from here
you've seen other reports, there's a constant mention
of the power vacuum.
Really rightfully so, when things are this chaotic
and there's such a big question mark, you have to wonder
will there be some sort of process that actually involves
the people and order is kept.
Or will we see a drastic drastic power grab.
But for right now, we'll have to wait and see.
And of course, I pass the question off to you,
what are your thoughts on this.
And that is where I'm going to end today's show.
And hey, if you like this video, let us know.
Hit that like button.
Also, if you're new here, you want more of these
dives into the news, be sure to hit that subscribe button,
tap that bell to turn on notification.
Also, if you're looking to more to watch, you can check out
my latest podcast, or maybe you just missed the last
Philip DeFranco show, you wanna catch up you can click
or tap right there to watch either of those.
But, with that said of course as always, my name's
Philip DeFranco, you've just been filled in,
I love yo' faces and I'll see you tomorrow.