- This man just can't keep it in his pants.
Dwayne Johnson just got rocked.
Elon's desperate flailing.
The crisis at the border is about to get worse.
New PewDiePie model.
We're gonna talk about all that and so much more
on today's brand new Philip DeFranco Show,
so buckle up, make sure you're subscribed,
and let's just jump into it.
Starting with...
This man right here makes Nick Cannon look like an amateur.
Because this man is Jonathan Jacob Meijer,
and he reportedly has over 500 children.
And the reason we're talking about him today,
is he's currently facing a lawsuit aimed
at forcing him to stop donating sperm.
With the lawsuit saying that Meijer's prolific
and obsessive donation habit heightens the risk
of accidental incest for the children.
And the thing is this idea in general,
it was a known concern.
In fact, right now,
Dutch guidelines limit donors to fathering 25 children
in order to minimize the risk of incest and inbreeding.
But Meijer apparently said, "To hell with that."
Because he reportedly donated to at least 13 clinics
in the Netherlands, as well as used websites
and social media to reach out to women looking for donors.
In fact, back in 2017,
after the Dutch Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology
had learned that Meijer had already fathered more
than 100 children,
he was blacklisted from all clinics in the Netherlands.
But then he reportedly just continued his donations
in Ukraine and Denmark, as well as internationally.
And understand the 500, 550 number
that's getting thrown around?
All right, that doesn't factor in children
he may have fathered using those international services
or anonymous donations.
With one professional
who tracked Meijer's movements telling the Times in 2021,
that she had found mothers of his children in Australia,
Italy, Serbia, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Switzerland,
Romania, Sweden, Mexico, and the US.
With many of the mothers of Meijer's children displeased
with learning how many kids he has.
With one mother from the Netherlands partnering
with Donorkind, a Dutch organization
for children conceived via sperm donor,
bringing this lawsuit against him.
With the mother claiming that Meijer's told her
that he didn't have more than 25 donor children.
So, she was very surprised to learn the truth saying,
"had I known this, I would've never chosen him."
And adding, "when I think about the consequences
this could have for my child, I get a bad gut feeling,
and I become uncertain about his future.
How many more children will be added?"
And so, you have Donorkind and this mother looking
for the court to order Meijer to stop donating
and for any clinic that has his sperm to destroy it.
And then in entertainment news...
Dwayne Johnson owes $30 million
to Disney, Netflix, and a bunch of other major studios.
Though, no, not that Dwayne Johnson,
I'm not talking about The Rock.
Rather, it's this completely other guy
that also just happens to be named Dwayne Johnson.
Because according to this new report
from the Hollywood Reporter,
this random guy just agreed to resolve a piracy lawsuit
with those studios.
Right, because this Dwayne Johnson,
who's never asked you if you can smell what he's cooking,
was sued by Universal, Disney, and Netflix back
in December of 2021 for copyright infringement.
And other studios like Warner Bros.
and Paramount later joining onto the case.
And that's 'cause Johnson was accused
of operating two services
that sold subscriptions to copyrighted movies and shows
with the extent of the piracy here reportedly being massive.
With those services hosting things
like Harry Potter films and The Office.
And on top of that,
there was reportedly a live feed channel
that allowed people to access HBO, Cinemax, and more.
And from just one of those services,
Johnson allegedly made $3 million in annual revenue.
But ultimately,
he's now agreed to pay $30 million over the matter
and he's also barred from continuing
to operate any service with pirated content.
So, this is obviously a win for Hollywood
but I don't know how long term of a win.
Because for them,
I imagine this is like a never ending game of whack-a-mole.
With Bloomberg reporting that piracy costs
the entertainment industry $71 billion a year globally.
And then...
So why are people saying PewDiePie just figured out
a real life infinite money glitch?
Well, that's because over the last few days,
his old Twitch channel, which has sat dormant for years,
has seemingly come back to life.
Except this isn't PewDiePie making a big old return
to Twitch streaming and it's not like he got hacked.
Instead, what's actually happening is his catalog
of nearly 5,000 YouTube videos is just playing 24/7,
back to back to back.
With people then dubbing it an infinite money glitch
because of the sheer amount of content it can throw out
to the public simply by recycling old videos.
As an always on channel, he is getting ad revenue,
possibly new subscriptions,
and introduces him to new audiences.
And this may be just a small part
of what ends up being a much larger movement
because this appears to be a partnership
with a licensing company called CoPilot Media.
With them calling this stream initiative,
PewDiePie Infinite.
And I think if this is even remotely a success,
we're gonna see a lot of other creators do it.
Because in part there are a lot of creators
that don't wanna just like do other shit.
For example, I have a show over on Snapchat,
except I literally have nothing to do with it.
That's just a company called Jellysmack
that repurposes my content,
we had a completely different audience,
we bring in a bunch of different revenue.
And when it comes to PewDiePie or other creators,
I can understand the appeal of like, an always on channel.
I mean, how many of us have or have had a show
in the past that we just like, we put on in the background?
Like I know for some people,
it's like Friends or The Office,
others, it's Family Guy or The Simpsons.
So why not this?
Where it's one of your favorite creators
and at the same time, there's a chat with it.
So you can watch it passively
or it could be you and a bunch of fans
like actually interacting.
But ultimately, we're gonna have to wait
to see how people in the market react to this.
Is this successful?
I hopped in in the middle of today's show
and there were 1,500 concurrent viewers,
which is not nothing, but it's also not crazy numbers.
With this, I'd love to know your thoughts.
And then...
Ticketmaster is officially headed to court.
And this, over that complete shitshow fans dealt
with trying to get tickets to Taylor Swift's Eras Tour.
Dealing with hours of technical difficulties,
glitches, getting booted, pretty much everything other
than a street fight happened.
Though if it did, that wouldn't surprise me,
but all in an effort to get tickets
and most walked away empty-handed.
Which is why we saw fans filing a lawsuit
against Ticketmaster
and that suit actually had its first hearing
in Los Angeles yesterday.
On a website titled Take Down Ticketmaster,
the firm representing the Swifties' claims,
"fans' experiences with Ticketmaster indicated
a potential pattern of fraudulent behavior
and antitrust violations by the company."
And in this case, there are over 300 plaintiffs
with some flying from all over the country
to be present at the hearing.
With 30 plaintiffs,
most of whom actually participated virtually speaking
on Monday about the kind of lawsuit they're seeking.
With lawyer, Jennifer Anne Kinder,
specifically planning to not seek class action status
because she feels that individual trials
will be more effective for the plaintiffs.
And with these, we're seeing fans seeking
at least $2,500 each in damages.
Though as the LA Times noted,
their real goal is to break up Live Nation's monopoly.
With one Swiftie telling CNN,
"it has nothing to do with the money.
It has everything to do
with Ticketmaster is the only venue in town.
It's the only place to get tickets."
And Kinder telling the LA Times that she wants forensic data
on what went down the day Eras' tour tickets went on sale.
How bots got in,
why the site couldn't accommodate all the users
and explaining, "I think that's a single best source
of information we're gonna ever have
about the power and control they have
and that the only remedy is complete breakup."
Also with this hearing,
there was a rally of at least a dozen Swifties outside
of the courthouse holding signs with song references,
vowing to take Ticketmaster down.
And for Ticketmaster,
like these aren't even the only sets of fans
that are suing them.
Because you have Drake fans also filing
a price gouging lawsuit against them as well now.
And then...
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In business news...
Twitter's becoming unrecognizable.
I made a joke yesterday about how weird it's algorithm is,
that whole For You page.
It's the default section of the platform now
and for me, it promotes just completely insane videos
of people like getting punched in the back of the head
from accounts I don't follow or would have no interest in.
As well as just like, the most incendiary tweets
that seemingly are trying to like bait me into a reaction.
And now, with Elon Musk's newest announcement,
it's probably just gonna get worse.
Because he just announced it's starting on April 15th,
only verified accounts are going
to come up on people's For You page.
And if you don't pay Elon Musk a monthly fee
for your check mark, you can't even vote in Twitter polls.
With Musk trying to justify his decision today saying,
"this is the only realistic way
to address advanced AI bot swarms taking over.
It is otherwise a hopeless losing battle."
Yes, definitely that and not related
to all the humans who helped him lose
that Twitter poll he put out back in December
where he was like, "should I step down?"
And people are like, "yes, motherfucker."
You know, with this,
it seems to have moved even more people into thinking
that Elon Musk's moves here are desperate cash grabs.
With previous reports hitting on
how underwhelming the revenue's been
for Twitter Blue up until this point.
Others saying that Musk's decision
also completely ignores the free options
that would stop bots that some users have suggested.
Things like requiring ID for accounts,
although I don't think
that would be a hugely popular option either.
Unless you're like a devout Musk follower,
nothing up until this point makes you go like,
"yeah, I'd trust him with my government ID."
And understand,
I see all this only being impacted by really one thing.
Right, like I see verified accounts
are losing their status on April 1st,
oh no, poor me.
For me as a person, don't care.
Like I wasn't going, "hey, look who's verified on Twitter?"
That said,
I do think it's gonna cause so much fucking confusion
for so many people for so many different reasons.
And as far as Twitter Blue,
that doesn't affect me because I've been subscribed
to Twitter Blue before Spaceman bought the site.
But for others, I mean,
in addition to the people getting confused
about who's actually who with everyone being verified
and there're being a lot of name dupes,
there're now likely a ton of creators going,
"wait, so I'm gonna lose my audience
if I'm not paying Elon Musk $7?"
But with that, there's one last piece of the puzzle
that makes it all kind of look worse.
And it's because according to an alleged leak,
there's a list of 35 people
that Twitter doesn't enforce these restrictions on.
Because normally,
the algorithm somewhat limits how far a tweet can reach,
even if you're paying $7 a month.
But allegedly for these 35,
their stuff's boosted and way more likely
to show up in your feed as well as not get limited.
But with this, only 14 of the names were revealed,
but they include Elon Musk, Ben Shapiro,
and a popular MAGA account named Catturd2.
An account that's actually so popular
that even Trump cited a poll that they ran on Twitter once.
- You'll see some numbers that are incredible.
You'll see some numbers that we just had one today,
69 for Trump and I think 18 or 19 for the DeSanctimonius.
- But understand, not just one side was represented,
you had people like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,
President Joe Biden,
celebrities like Mr. Beast and LeBron James.
Though here, based on other reports,
it seems that Elon's tweet get the most boosting.
But ultimately, we're at a place
that we're gonna have to wait to see
what actually happens from these changes, right?
Does Elon Musk making the the base version
of Twitter kind of just fucking suck,
inspire enough people to sign up to Twitter Blue
where there's a big enough revenue change?
Maybe, who knows?
I mean, I personally think it's gonna fail.
Twitter used to be the app I used the most,
I barely fucking post on that thing now.
It's pushed me really more towards like TikTok.
Right, and that's just because it's part of my job.
But as far as like a consumer experience?
(Philip blows raspberry)
It genuinely feels like he's actively tried
to ruin the website.
And then...
Some former Chipotle workers are getting over a quarter
of a million dollars.
With the company now reaching a settlement
with the National Labor Relations Board
over a dispute about unionization.
And so, a single location in Maine had voted
to unionize overpay and staffing issues.
But Chipotle claims that the whole union thing had nothing
to do with the closing and rather,
it was those staffing issues.
But the NLRB said, "hey, no, this looks like retaliation."
Though we likely won't know the official truth
because both sides have settled,
with Chipotle admitting no guilt.
Instead being able to say, you know,
it's just the litigating of all this,
would've been more expensive
than just paying the $240,000.
Which hey, money is money,
that's great for these employees.
But also the other way you could look at it is,
for a company like Chipotle,
they would rather close a store and just pay $240,000
than deal with 24 unionized employees.
Especially because just their mere existence
increases the likelihood of people unionizing elsewhere.
And then in international news...
At least 39 people died last night
in a protest gone horribly wrong.
Right so, it all started just across the border
from El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
Where you had local authorities picking up
illegal migrants off the streets
and throwing them in a detention center,
reportedly holding 68 adult males.
And then when some of them learned
about their impending deportation,
they reportedly set mattresses on fire in protest,
according to the Mexican president.
Since the mattresses were so flammable,
the blaze spread quickly
and the ensuing smoke suffocated many to death.
With others presumably burning,
leading to a death toll of 39 so far,
as well as 29 who were seriously injured.
I mean, not a single migrant got out unscathed.
But despite the horrific scale of this tragedy,
it still doesn't surpass the 53 migrants found dead
inside a sweltering San Antonio tractor trailer last July.
And even that's nothing compared
to the over 890 migrants bodies recorded
by US authorities in the 2022 fiscal year.
With many drowning in the Rio Grande,
others dying during the days long trek
across remote, mountainous areas of the US.
And even that doesn't count the dozens
who were lost at sea or died last year
on the Mexican side of the border.
But all of this is set to get even worse
as a surge of a illegal immigration is expected this spring
after a pandemic era restriction known as Title 42 lapses.
The Biden administration has expelled hundreds of thousands
of migrants under the law
and to prevent what's already a record border crisis
from getting worse, it's proposed a new policy.
A policy that would largely prohibit migrants
who passed through other countries on their way
to the border from applying for asylum in the US.
Which has also led a dozen Senate Democrats
to denounce the policy,
calling it a revised version of Trump's policy
that went into effect in 2020
but was later struck down in a federal court.
With them joining a chorus of voices,
including thousands of migrant activists
in the UN Refugee Agency.
That's where I'm gonna leave you today.
Thank you as always,
being a part of my daily dive into the news.
My name's Philip DeFranco, you've just been filled in.
I love yo' faces and I'll see you tomorrow.