💬 "The Very Online War in Ukraine"

Host: Jon Favreau
Guest: Kara Swisher | Journalist
Category: 💬 Opinion

Podcast’s Essential Bites:

[4:57] “I think [tech companies] should have [limited the spread of Russian state sponsored disinformation and propaganda] years ago. […] This was happening in so many ways, usually under the dark of night. […] [Now] there's a lot of pressure here as a civilian population that's getting attacked, there's a lot of things where they don't look great if they continue to allow this to happen. […] And so I think what's really important to think about here is that they're capable of it. Now, that's a good thing and a bad thing. […] I'm not a conservative person, but I certainly do hear their worries about a small coterie of people being able to do enormous damage to the information systems of any country. And you can see why autocrats are worried. And they also want to use these systems at the same time. So it's kind of an interesting problem that they're a tool and a weapon at the same time.”

[8:08] “The way you take over a country is you first grab the communications tower or the TV tower. The second thing you do is grab the money […]. It's not all about just, like, heedlessly bombing civilian targets, which is so appalling on every level. It's also grabbing the ability to use propaganda. And this is why a lot of autocrats do like the internet, if they can have control of it, […] like in the Philippines […] [or] Turkey. […] It's linked to a lot of much more dangerous stuff, like credit cards and electrical grids and important emergency power and light and gas […] it’s all on a computer system.”

[16:04] “[Volodymyr Zelenskyy] is addressing people, he looks like he's there with them. […] Everything he's doing is just incredible. It's memeable, I hate to say that. It also is admirable. This is how people get news around the world. […] I hate to again say it is snackable. [...] He's been an entertainer before so he does have some understanding of performance and a lot of politics is performance.”

[23:44] “What can Russia say? […] What kind of meme could they do? […] There is none. […] The Nazi things not working as they bomb Holocaust memorials. […] I mean, just terrible. […] They don't have a persuasion element. And war is about brutality and killing and everything else, but it's also about persuasion and […] putting either fear into [people] or hope. And I think Ukraine has done the hope part really well.”

[25:42] “Every visual that comes out is pro Ukraine and anti Russian. […] It's the first internet enabled war and I do think it does have an advantage. And it also creates a population that is not going to roll over even if they get rolled over. This is going to be a real problem for Russia forever.”

[29:47] “I always joke about my mom, but you've got an […] older population who consumes endless propaganda. […] Propaganda, it's repetition, reinforcement, repetition, reinforcement and the Internet allows you to do that quite a bit. But cable works. Fox News works, especially on an elderly population that […] doesn't have other means of information. Young people are like, no, I have [other information sources] over here. The problem is a lot of them go into conspiracy theory.“

[31:22] “[Social media] is a million lies going to a million heads all different. […] The very first column I wrote for The New York Times […] was talking about that it weaponizes and amplifies. And I call them the arms dealers of the digital age. That's what they are. They give everyone lots of guns. And so when you put lots of guns in people's hands, people die. […] It's switched from accuracy, context and speed to speed, engagement, and virality. […] The other thing it's meant to do is addict […] and now through the pandemic, it's necessary. You can't not be online. And it's also for entertainment. So it's addictive and necessary, and it's designed to engage you and enrage you. […] All the good uses of it, of which there are many and should be mostly, are out the window when you have that stuff.”

[36:49] “The 10 top companies are tech companies, except for Saudi Aramco. […] The 10 top richest people, except for one or two people, are all tech people. […] So they have all the money, they get all the rent and they don't provide stop signs, water, police, firemen. Talk about defunding the police. They defunded the police a long time ago online, so they didn't fund it.”

Rating: 🚀🚀🚀🚀

🎙️ Full Episode: Apple | Spotify | Google
🕰️ 1 hr 4 min | 🗓️ 03/06/2022
✅ Time saved: 1 hr 2 min