- Y'all, are people okay?
I woke up this morning and found
the most accidental positive video.
Like, the person filming it is so ignorant and stupid
that they then uploaded the video,
not realizing they got completely owned!
Let's walk through it together.
So we have a person filming,
I'll refer to them as "Garbage Person A,"
and they have an issue with Target selling a pride shirt.
- [Man Filming] Oh, I hope they do.
Hey, do you guys support the satanic pride propaganda?
- Yeah, both.
- [Man Filming] You support it?
- Satan and pride.
- [Man Filming] You support Satan?
(woman humming affirmatively)
- So right off the bat, I love this wo-
I don't know what your name is, lady, but I love you.
That "I don't have time for bigots" energy is just
(laughs) radiating out of you.
She's like, "Yep, love Satan.
I'm actually Satan herself.
I think that I'm in hell right now, dealing with you."
- [Man Filming] What's God gonna think of that?
- I don't believe in God.
- [Man Filming] Wow.
So you think-
- [Blonde Woman] Did you need help with something?
- [Man Filming] You support the propaganda
that's targeting the kids?
- There's nothing targeting kids.
- [Man Filming] It's all over kids' TV shows.
It's all over.
They're targeting kids.
- Kids can choose to wear whatever they want.
- [Philip] We then see this guy come into frame.
It turns out he's the undercover loss prevention.
He's like, "You gotta get outta here."
And so what we see is Garbage Person A
making his way towards the front,
periodically stopping to see if other people
support the pride shirt, with him slowly realizing that
literally no one is on his side here.
- [Man Filming] Hey, ma'am, do you support this?
- [Loss Prevention Man] What did I just say?
- [Man Filming] You support pride propaganda?
- Please stop- - [Man Filming] Whoa!
I'm buying this! - I need you to-
- [Man Filming] Whoa, let go, ma'am!
Trespassing, I don't care, dude.
- [Blonde Woman] Clearly.
- [Man Filming] You think I care if you trespass?
I've done this a thousand times.
- [Blonde Woman] We never said that.
- [Man Filming] Excuse me, do you guys support this?
- We do.
- [Man Filming] Do you guys support the propaganda?
- Yeah. - [Man Filming] You do?
- Yeah. - [Blonde Woman] So you can-
- [Man Filming] It's satanic, man.
- [Blonde Woman] Please ignore it.
- [Man Filming] Do you know what
the real rainbow stands for?
- You can just continue-
- [Man Filming] The real rainbow is from God.
Hey sir, do you support this propaganda?
- [Blonde Woman] Ignore him.
Ignore him.
- [Man Filming] Do you support it or no?
- Get out of here!
- [Philip] He then proceeds to not buy the shirt,
he steps on it, and the video ends.
So I watched his video, and obviously I'm disappointed
that this very proud bigot feels very comfortable
with putting this out there,
but I also feel great because everyone around him was like,
"Who are you?
Why are you horrible?"
And then also looking at the public reaction
since this got posted, going through Reddit comments,
and just seeing people say
the thoughts that are in my head.
Comments like, "I have some unfortunate news
for this ignorant person.
Matthew 6:1:34,
'Beware practicing your righteousness before other people
in order to be seen by them, for then you will have
no reward from your Father who is in heaven.'"
which was then followed up by,
"If he could read the Bible, he'd be very upset."
Others asking out loud, "Does this guy have a fetish
of being embarrassed in public?"
Several others noting the same thing I said,
that this is an accidentally positive video.
Everyone around him were calm, sane individuals
who didn't engage with him and simply
removed him from the area.
He wanted to be a hero, but everyone treated him like
the attention-demanding little brat that he is.
So yeah, I guess, to Garbage Person A/douchebag of the day,
thank you for accidentally giving me
a little hope in humanity today.
You suck, and yes, people will always suck,
but those who don't seem to outnumber you.
(energetic music)
And then we've definitely gotta talk about
the absolute tragedy coming out of New Mexico
on the film set of "Rust," the new Alec Baldwin movie.
We've got new details thanks to a new affidavit,
but let's talk about it.
So to start with the top-level stuff
that you've likely seen already
with Alec Baldwin firing a prop gun,
not knowing that it contained live rounds,
shooting and injuring director Joel Souza,
shooting and killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
As far as some of the specifics,
Baldwin was allegedly rehearsing a scene
where he pointed a gun toward the camera lens
with Souza saying that he heard what sounded like
a whip and then a loud pop,
Souza also telling investigators that the gun
had been described as a "cold gun"
during a firearm safety announcement,
meaning that it was not loaded,
adding of the guns on set were typically checked
by the on-set armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed,
and the assistant director, Dave halls,
who gave guns to the actors.
According to Souza, after preparing for the scene,
which was in a church, the crew took a lunch break
elsewhere and he wasn't sure if the firearm
had been checked again after lunch.
Also saying that after the misfire,
he first noticed Hutchins grabbing her midsection,
stumbling back before realizing he had been
hit in the shoulder as well,
cameraman Reid Russell, who was near Hutchins
during the accident, telling a similar story.
The affidavit saying that Halls grabbed a revolver
from a tray set up by Gutierrez-Reed,
with him shouting "cold gun" when handing it to Baldwin.
But also, it is definitely worth noting that this incident
came after the crew had reportedly walked out in protest
of unsafe conditions on the film's set,
with the affidavit noting that about
six camera crew workers quit over late pay
and safety conditions, so they ended up
hiring another crew very quickly,
with production on the day of the accident
also off to a late start because of related issues.
Though, you also had Souza reportedly telling investigators
that everyone was getting along and that there had been
no altercations to his knowledge.
But, you had a report from the Los Angeles Times
alleging that there were safety concerns
from people behind the scenes,
saying half a dozen staffers were frustrated by
several things on the low-budget set, including long hours,
long commutes, and waiting for paychecks.
That report also saying that the standard industry safety
protocols were not strictly followed,
and that at least one worker complained
specifically about the gun safety,
with sources saying there had already been
at least two accidental discharges of a prop gun
with Baldwin's stunt double allegedly being told
a gun was cold, and then firing two rounds,
with one crew member saying that after that incident,
"There should've been an investigation into what happened.
There were no safety meetings,
there was no assurance that it wouldn't happen again.
All they wanted to do was rush, rush, rush."
Another source saying that corners were being cut
and they brought in non-union people
so they could continue shooting.
With The Times even reporting that Hutchins herself
was advocating for safer conditions for her team.
Though, in response to all of this,
we saw Rust Movie Productions releasing a statement,
saying, "The safety of our cast and crew
is a top priority of Rust Productions
and everyone associated with the company,"
and further adding that the team was, quote,
"Not made aware of any official complaints
concerning weapon or prop safety on set."
Though, new things keep pouring in, right?
Today, we saw the Santa Fe New Mexican report
that Halls, who was the AD that called "cold gun"
and handed the gun to Baldwin,
they had previous complaints filed by a former crew member
on previous Blumhouse projects,
with the complaint stating that Halls disregarded
safety protocols for weapons in the past.
But as far as they know,
nothing had come of the internal complaint,
and even with all of that, Halls did not
respond for a comment.
Then, as far as Baldwin, he said in a statement,
"There are no words to convey my shock and sadness
regarding the tragic accident that took the life of
Halyna Hutchins, a wife, mother,
and deeply admired colleague of ours.
I'm fully cooperating with the police investigation
to address how this tragedy occurred."
Now, with all of that said, as far as what happens
from here, we're gonna have to wait to see
what comes from the investigations.
Obviously, there's a lot of talk about criminal,
or at the very least, civil liability.
This has also sparked a massive conversation
about safety on sets, because this is not
the first accident of this nature,
with many arguing that we've reached a point with VFX
where you can just fake it.
But for now, we have to wait and see,
and while we do that, I'll pass the question off to you.
What are your thoughts regarding this shooting?
Whether it be just about the tragedy in general,
the potential liability we may see,
and/or if Hollywood's going to change.
Then in incredibly interesting business news,
I think it's very telling of the times,
we should talk about FaZe Clan,
an organization that, back in 2010, started as a few kids
posting trick shot videos to YouTube,
and now it is going to have a $1 billion valuation.
With FaZe Clan now announcing that they will be going public
in a merger with a special purpose acquisition company,
a SPAC.
FaZe Clan is reportedly raising $120 million
for a private investment in public equity
while the SPAC is roughly $170 million
that could be used for the deal.
It's all expected to close first quarter of 2022,
and upon completion, FaZe Clan will be listed on NASDAQ
with the ticker, "FAZE."
And here's the deal, whether you would love 'em,
you hate 'em, you didn't know about FaZe Clan
until I started talking about them today, this is massive.
It's easily The biggest creator economy deal
that we've ever seen.
The company is, in general, the perfect merging of
homegrown digital talent, as well as
mainstream stars in sports, music, and more.
With the addition of that mainstream talent
really showing the impact that FaZe Clan can have
on the culture.
Whether this is a success or a failure,
it's gonna change our landscape.
Like, just look out for this
for the next one to three years.
Especially because if you were blown away by
the meme stock craze, we have all these retail investors,
everyone going, "I love GameStop, I love AMC,"
what happens when you have a company that has
as many fans as FaZe Clan does going public?
Time will tell, but for those that are
familiar with FaZe Clan, what do you think's gonna happen?
But from that, I want to take a quick second
to thank the fantastic sponsor today's show, Seat Geek.
Most of you know, I've worked with Seat Geek
for a long time now, and I'm so excited
to be working with them again.
One, because they're just a fantastic partner
whose only requirement is "just be you,"
And two, it means that everything's opening back up again.
I get to do awesome stuff that I've wanted to do
for the last two years.
I went to a comedy show recently, some football games,
I'm gonna go to the World Series this week.
If you're ready to get back out there too,
our friends over at Seat Geek have all the tickets
you could ever need in one place.
From live sporting events, to concerts, art exhibits,
festivals, stand up comedy, and the list goes on and on.
And fantastically, Seat Geek has your back
by putting all the tickets from across the web in one place
to make buying simple, so whether it's next week,
or next year, you can find any and all the tickets you want.
Also, incredibly important, they even rate tickets
from zero to 10 to make sure you're getting a good deal.
It's as simple as green means good, red means bad,
which is incredibly helpful.
Without that feature, I might have accidentally
paid double for a ticket that's pretty much
in the same section.
Best of all, you can get $20 off your first purchase
by just using code "Phil" at checkout.
That's $20 off your first purchase with promo code "Phil."
So click that link, download the app, and get started today.
And then, we should definitely talk about
what's now being dubbed "The Facebook Papers"
because there is a ton to break down here.
So remember that Facebook whistleblower, Frances Haugen,
who turned over thousands of internal documents
to federal law enforcement earlier this year?
Really damning documents that led to congressional hearings?
Well, now thanks to a collaboration between
17 different major news outlets,
we know a lot of information,
some of it damning, some of it interesting.
And just so you don't have to go through
17 different massive pieces,
I'm gonna try and consolidate this for you.
So among the things we saw,
we saw Bloomberg and The Verge reporting that
Facebook is struggling to retain its hold over teens,
with internal documents saying that since 2019,
teen users on the app have fallen by 13%,
with the company expecting another drop of 45%
over the next two years, with Facebook data scientists
saying that aging up is a very real issue
for Facebook, right?
As the app's average age continues to increase,
that could disengage younger users even more,
further explaining, "Most young adults perceive Facebook
as a place for people in their forties and fifties.
Young adults perceive content as boring,
misleading, and negative."
And I would argue those people are absolutely correct.
I don't know the last time I went on Facebook
and I was like, "Oh, I'm really happy about this choice!"
You also had the New York Times reporting that Facebook
actually struggled internally about whether to throw out
the like and the share button.
Also, on the note of moderation,
the Financial Times reported that Facebook employees
urged management not to exempt notable figures,
such as politicians and celebrities, from moderation rules.
We also learned, in 2019, researchers for Facebook asserted
that the platform's core product mechanics were allowing
misinformation and hate to flourish, even directly saying,
"The mechanics of our platform are not neutral."
You also had The Atlantic, Wired, and The AP
finding that terrorist content and hate speech
continues to spread easily on the platform.
And while many of y'all who watch this show,
right, when we talk about these issues,
you think, "Okay, how does this affect me as an American?
How does this affect me as someone from Canada, the UK,
or usually an English-speaking country?"
What they found is that this is
an even bigger international issue.
In part, that's because Facebook is short on moderators
who speak local languages and understand cultural contexts,
and finding that Facebook's AI-driven solution,
I think the technical term is "complete dogshit,"
at catching harmful content in different languages.
According to reports, as little as 6% of
Arabic language hate content on Instagram
was detected by Facebook's systems,
another the report indicating that, quote,
"Of material posted in Afghanistan
that was classified as hate speech within a 30-day range,
only 0.23% was taken down automatically
by Facebook's tools."
Also in countries like India,
there are 22 recognized languages,
but Facebook's AI is only trained in five of them.
Then, in regards to human trafficking,
which I think is one of the few things
we can all get on the same page on, right?
We're all against that, I hope.
We have The Atlantic reporting that really the only way
to get Facebook to address this is to attack them,
the documents appearing to confirm that
the company only took strong action
against human trafficking after Apple threatened to
pull Facebook and Instagram from its app store.
Prior to that, Facebook initially took some action,
but it didn't disable or take down related profiles,
and actually, because of that, the BBC would later uncover
a broad network of human traffickers.
From there, Facebook would take additional action,
but according to their own internal documents,
domestic servitude content remained on the platform.
Also, since mark Zuckerberg constantly talks about
freedom of speech, we should definitely mention this part.
According to The Washington Post, Zuckerberg personally
made a decision last year to have Facebook
agree to demands set forth by Vietnam's
ruling Communist Party, demands which censored
anti-government dissonance.
It was that, or get knocked offline in the country,
so as the post notes, "In America, the tech CEO
is a champion of free speech, reluctant to remove
even malicious and misleading content from the platform.
But in Vietnam, upholding the free speech rights of people
who question government leaders, too expensive,"
with the company reportedly earning more than $1 billion
in annual revenue from the area,
with The Post adding, "Zuckerberg's role in the
Vietnam decision, which has not been previously reported,
exemplifies his relentless determination
to ensure Facebook's dominance,
sometimes at the expense of his stated values."
Actually, y'all, this is where I'm gonna
stop with this story for now,
though this is not the end of what the documents reveal.
You have more and more information being compiled by
Politico, CNN, NBC, and a host of others.
What's being found in this, I mean,
this could fill a docuseries,
and I imagine we will see one soon.
We didn't even touch on how much Facebook downplayed
its role in the insurrection,
how the employees internally were calling for action,
but as Axios, I think, kind of fantastically sums up,
"While the individual revelations are damning,
collectively the reports paint a picture of Facebook
as a brutish corporate actor that prioritizes
its business over safety,"
and adding that while Facebook has continually denied this,
and continues to deny this, these claims, quote,
"Make it harder to do so when dozens of reports
are published simultaneously based off of
its own leaked internal research."
And honestly, who knows when this all ends, because, I mean,
even this last Friday, you had another whistleblower
submitting an affidavit to the SCC.
And then, you know, I briefly mentioned January 6th,
but we have big news that's now being reported
about January 6th.
And that's because two people who helped plan
the pro-Trump demonstrations on January 6th
that took place ahead of the insurrection
reportedly told Rolling Stone in an article
published yesterday that members of Congress
and the White House helped plan the protest.
According to the report, the two people identified
only as a rally organizer and a planner,
who have both now begun communicating with
congressional investigators, told the outlet that
they participated in dozens of planning briefings
ahead of the protest, and that, quote,
"Multiple members of Congress were intimately involved in
planning both Trump's efforts to overturn his election loss
and the January 6th events that turned violent."
With a rally organizer explicitly saying,
"I remember Marjorie Taylor green specifically.
I remember talking to probably close to a dozen
other members at one point or another, or their staffs,"
both saying that a number of other Congress members
were either personally involved in the conversations
or had staffers join in, this including
Representatives Paul Gosar, Lauren Boebert, Mo Brooks,
Madison Cawthorn, Andy Biggs and Louie Gohmert.
Though, notably, not all of this is new, right?
It's not the first time we've heard allegations
that some of these people were involved in the rallies.
As Rolling Stone notes, Gosar, Greene and Boebert
were all listed as speakers at the "Wild Protest"
at the Capitol on January 6th, which was arranged by
Stop the Steal organizer, Ali Alexander.
Additionally, Alexander said in a now deleted livestream
back in January that he personally planned the rally
with the help of Gosar, Biggs, and Brooks,
with Biggs and Brooks having previously denied
any involvement in planning the event,
though Brooks did speak at the Stop the Steal protest.
Gosar, for his part, has remained quiet for months,
but has tagged Alexander in numerous tweets,
including one taken at the January 6th rally,
but now he's still not speaking on the matter,
even as Rolling Stone reported that both sources say, quote,
"He dangled the possibility of a 'blanket pardon'
in an unrelated ongoing investigation
to encourage them to plan the protests,"
with the outlet also claiming that it, quote,
"Separately obtained documentary evidence
that both sources were in contact with Gosar and Boebert
on January 6th," though, it did not go into further detail.
Now, notably, the spokesperson for Greene
has denied that she was involved with planning the protest,
but so far, no other members have responded to the report.
But also, beyond members of Congress,
the outlet reported that the two sources also claim
they interacted with members of Trump's team,
including former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows,
who they describe as having had an opportunity
to prevent the violence.
The two also describing Meadows as someone who played
a major role in the conversation surrounding the protest,
and with all of that said, as far as what happens from here,
you have the two sources telling Rolling Stone
that they plan to share their information
with congressional investigators
and they're expecting to testify publicly.
We've also seen notable responses from members of Congress,
including AOC, tweeting, "Any member of Congress
who helped plot a terrorist attack on our nation's Capitol
must be expelled.
This was a terror attack, 138 injured, almost 10 dead.
Those responsible remain a danger to our democracy,
our country, and human life in the vicinity of
our Capitol and beyond."
With her also retweeting Jemele Hill, who wrote,
"The call was always coming from inside the house.
But I'm also old enough to remember when AOC said
she didn't trust folks to help her to safety
because she feared it was an inside job.
But y'all called her paranoid.
This was an active coup that needs to be
prosecuted thoroughly."
But yeah, for now, that is where we are.
We're gonna have to wait to see what happens,
if these stories can be corroborated, confirmed,
if any other information comes out.
But y'all, ultimately, that is where this story
and today's show ends.
Of course, I'd love to hear from you,
whether it be this last story, the first one,
anything in between that stood out to you.
Let me know what you're thinking
in those comments down below.
With that, 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.