307. Who Controls Our Information?

We are bombarded with so much information these days. And even though the internet allows us to get a lot of different perspectives, there is a small group of people who have decided which information is “correct.”

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Here’s a transcript of our conversation:

Emma: Hi, Brittany.

Brittany: Hey, Emma.

Emma: So today I wanna talk about an interesting question that has been brought up a lot over the course of this pandemic, but it’s also been brought up even before that. And the question is, who controls our information? And when I say information, I mean information that we have about our health, information, about our money, information, about our government information in general. And it’s a really common phrase now to say that we live in the information age. And that might be true. You might be able to google a question that you have and come back with a million answers and all sorts of info and data and all of this stuff that you can sort of sift through. But I also want to sort of pose this question, you know, what about the information that we don’t see or that we don’t have access to? And I think this pandemic since COVID first broke out, has been a really interesting sort of story about our information and how it’s kept, what we see and what we don’t see, and who is actually controlling all of these things. And, you know, we’ve talked a lot about sort of this like new world order type, you know there’s the UN and there are these, the World Health Organization and there’s the deep state, and there’s basically all of these, you know, super powerful groups of people in government and in these like corporations that are basically working together with the government and they really, really want to control us. And one of the best ways that you can control people is by manipulating what sorts of information they have access to. And that’s why when you look back at communist governments or at these, you know, really terrible authoritarian nations like North Korea, they don’t allow people to have access to the internet. They don’t let them read whatever they want. You know, there’s a very careful control of what sort of information people can have access to. And I think this is a really fascinating problem that we have right now, where if you post something like, you know this natural remedy is a good cure for COVID, and if you post it on social media, your account could be immediately just banned and you could just get kicked off for no reason. And this has happened actually to a lot of prominent doctors and scientists who have had hesitations when it comes to certain treatments for COVID or about the vaccine and all of these different things where people should be able to hear from whoever they want to. But a lot of people have been silenced and shut down. And I know Brittany, that you and I both love Joe Rogan. Yes. He’s kind of been at the forefront of this. And we’re gonna talk about this in multiple episodes, but it’s very, very interesting to see how big tech you and even the mainstream media like CNN and MSNBC TV outlets are really, really trying to take Joe Rogan down just for having certain people on his podcast and talking about it. So, do you still listen to Rogan a lot and have you kind of kept up with these doctors that he’s been talking to?

Brittany: Every single day? That’s like the highlight of my, if I get all caught up on my Rogan episodes, the highlight of my week, or he usually does three to four episodes, and that’s like every afternoon I’m making sure I get my new Rogan in.

Emma: Yes, And it’s, have you listened to the ones that he did with, Peter McCullough, who’s a doctor? Yes. And Robert Malone. Yes. Those were very fascinating. You wanna just give like a quick version of what they talked about?

Brittany: Yeah, well, and it’s, I forgot about it, but I was gonna go see Robert Malone speak. He was in DC last week, oh. And I forgot. Yeah. Big crowd. But,  so basically to put it, without having to get into too much detail, both these doctors were offering different perspectives about COVID. And the interesting thing about this is Bacal is like, he’s even vaccinated. Like he’s been in this world for a long time. Yeah. So this is not this crazy anti-vaxxer who’s, so both these doctors are like prominent doctors. These aren’t doctors who just like have their own like online, you know, like practice or something, even though a lot of people online practice now. And it’s fine. But in fact, one of them called this vaccinated. He’s talked a lot about it, he was really big in the forefront of COVID in the beginning, but now he’s a little bit skeptical of everything we’re being told now. Dr. Malone was really fascinating because he invented the MNRA vaccine, and that is what two of the COVID vaccines are and, he is kind of come out, again, being very skeptical and none of these people are like, they’re all bad. Like, you know, they’re not anti-vaxxers. Right. In the typical sense. Absolutely. But they were offering alternative perspectives. And Dr. Malone has like thousands of peer-reviewed, research that means like when you do research and then other people in your field review it so he’s huge in this stuff. And now all of a sudden everyone has come out saying he’s a liar, he’s a liar. Like, don’t trust him. He didn’t really invent the vaccine. Like, just, it’s crazy to me how quickly it happened. People are calling for Rogan to be removed entirely from Spotify. And like you said, we have another episode coming up on this, you know, specifically, so I won’t get into too much. But yeah, it was crazy. They’re both gray episodes not safe for the kids. Sometimes there’s like swear words and stuff.

Emma: Right, yeah.

Brittany: But crazy that you, this is the only place podcasts where you can get information like this out because like Yeah, Facebook will censor you and stuff and you can’t even, like now they’re wanting to censor you there.

Emma: Yeah, exactly. And it’s really crazy. Robert Malone, who was, like you said, he was the inventor of the MRNA vaccines, which would be the Pfizer and the Moderna vaccines. He actually got banned from Twitter randomly. Yeah. They never gave him a reason. He just got completely banned. And it happened to actually be a couple of days before his Rogan episode. And I think it actually probably whoever banned him, I think it had the complete opposite effect of what they wanted to happen. Yeah. Because of all of these people, I hadn’t really heard of him. I’d seen him around a couple of times, but I didn’t really know what he did. And I tuned into that podcast and listened to the entire thing because I was like, why are they so intent on shutting this guy down? And there’s a really, good quote from a show that I’ve watched in the past where it says, when you tear out a man’s tongue, you’re not, you’re not just calling him a liar, you’re proving that you’re afraid of what he has to say. Basically. Yeah. I probably just butchered it, but it’s really true. It’s like all of these people now are thinking, well, why doesn’t the government, why doesn’t big tech want me to hear this? That’s concerning. And when they go listen to the podcast and think, well, he seems like a pretty normal guy, all that does is sow seeds of doubt in people’s minds. And to kind of go back to this question of who controls our information. We don’t really have a super clear answer because it seems like there are a lot of people working together to try to control what kinds of information we all have access to. And it’s interesting because I have pulled up here on my computer just, just as research for this podcast. I googled Peter McCullough, and the first thing that pops up is Wikipedia. And it says, Peter McCullough is an American cardiologist. He was Vice Chief of Internal Medicine at Baylor University Medical Center, which is a very prestigious position. And then it says during the COVID-19 pandemic, he promoted misinformation about COVID-19, the vaccine, and treatments. And that’s just what pops up. Google promotes that even though Wikipedia can be edited by literally anyone. So, it’s, sometimes it’s helpful, sometimes it’s not. When people just come in and say, oh, this guy’s crazy. There are a lot of impressionable people who would Google that and just believe it, who are like, oh, it says it right here on Google, it pulls up this little profile on him. It’s easy to see. And that to me is so scary because there are a lot of people who I think don’t, don’t think super deeply when the government, or when Google or whoever it is, tells them what to think or tells them something like, oh, this person’s crazy. They’re a conspiracy theorist. They’re just like, oh, wow, okay. I didn’t know that. And they don’t think twice about it. And my guess is most people listening to this podcast are not like that. But you probably know people that are, and it’s sad to think about how much people can be manipulated by what sorts of information they see and what they see written by these people. It just, Brittany, it really concerns me that there are a lot of folks out there who probably just read that and they don’t think twice. And, anytime they see that person’s name pop up again, they’re gonna just completely ignore anything they say, even if it’s actually legit information from a real doctor. So it’s, pretty scary to me.

Brittany: It’s not only scary, it’s, and this is something this is very controversial, even in, in circles of people who really love liberty as, you know, most of us have this very strong belief that government cannot censor private companies are allowed to, you know, same with like, the government shouldn’t tell people not to wear masks, but if a private company wants to, now, a lot of people got mad at Costco during the pandemic because they were, you know, making people masks. And a lot of people who again, love liberty, were mad. Now with the information thing, you’re running into the same thing. And I have a really hard time with this too, because Twitter and Facebook have gotten so powerful. Yeah. That now they edit even Instagram if you like and will hide posts. So they’ve gotten so powerful. Now, are these private, you know, entities? Yes. But the other thing is, do they also have ties with the government? Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. And they’re working to get rid of anything else. So like, there was plat, there were platforms like Parler which were letting people speak freely. And then Twitter and all these places got together and said like, they’re spreading misinformation. We need to block them. And so yeah, apple and Google took them off their apps where you download apps on your phone, so you can’t get access to this. So it really makes you ask the question. I don’t wanna answer it for you, I don’t wanna tell you what the right thing to do is, but I think you should ask yourselves, how have we gotten into a situation where even these private companies are working with government, or even if they’re not, they’re working to get people to suppress any outlet that will give people an alternative perspective. So it’s very, very scary. We’re finding ourselves in times where every couple of days, I’ll be honest with you Emma, I’ve had to stop and be like, is this real? Yeah. Like is this actually happening? Because we read about this in history books when. Yeah. You know, regimes like China even happening now, you know, these places that have tried to try to get their people to think a certain way. Yeah. And then it’s like, oh my goodness, this is, we’re living in a really bad movie. Like, there’s V for Vendetta, it’s, which is not for kids, but one of my favorite movies actually, part of the reason I became a libertarian is because of V for Vendetta. Nice. Yeah. It was the only time, the first time in my life I wondered that maybe the government didn’t know what was best for Ian. Maybe they weren’t telling the truth. Yeah. And now it’s like, I’m living in this world where I’m like, oh my goodness, it feels like me from V for Vendetta. It’s dystopian as Connor, I talk about a lot. So it’s, nuts, Emma. Like, I find myself just really shocked, flabbergasted as they say, what’s happening?

Emma:

Same. Well, I just saw a thing the other day and I was like, is this real? I had an actual moment where I was like, this seems like a maybe a fake internet story, cuz there is a lot of fake stuff out there. Oh, there, yes. Just, it’s on you to do your own research and figure it out. But it actually did happen. So another movie that is most certainly not for kids, but it’s a movie called Fight Club. And it was a very anti-government anti-establishment movie. And the ending is very much anti-government, anti-establishment. And in China, they forced the creators of the movie, or I don’t know exactly how they did this, but in China, if you live there and you Google Fight Club and you try to watch it, it will actually have a different ending to the movie. And the ending is like the most important part of this whole movie. It’s when everything comes together and in the ending, rather than, you know, the anti-government people getting what they want and having this dramatic finish, the government comes in and the authorities win, and a message comes on the screen that was like, the authorities properly took care of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that to me was so creepy to hear about because that’s one of the most famous movies in the world. And China is just gonna act like that ending didn’t happen. And they’re just changing it. And there’s even an interesting thing from a few years back with Transformers, where there was this one scene where, you know, optimist Prime, who’s like the main hero, basically. He has this scene where he like rolls out and there’s this big American flag behind him. And China basically said, their government said, we’re not gonna play that movie in our country if you don’t take that scene out. And because it’s too pro-west, it’s too, which is just nuts to me. It’s like, okay, transformers is not like my favorite movie ever. But that’s so silly that they’re so stringent on what you can and can’t do even in, even in a piece of art in a movie. And that to me is really scary, especially given how few people actually care about what’s going on in countries like China. Yeah. Because if you’re not paying attention to what’s happening in these authoritarian nations where people have no freedom, you’re not gonna recognize it when it happens in your own backyard. And I think we are dangerously close to that right now. And my caution to you guys would be, as we kind of close this up, I’m not sure if you have anything to add, Brittany, but my caution would be to pay attention to the terms people use when you, when you see a misinformation flag or you see, oh, this has been, you know, deemed false by independent fact-checkers. Look into who’s behind it. Who are those fact checkers, where is that coming from, and is it possible that they have a motive that they are not telling you? So, that’s kind of my caution to people. Brittany, I don’t know if you have any last closing thoughts before we wrap it up here.

Brittany: Your default should be to believe nothing, that you research. Yes. And that’s when you decide Yes. What to believe otherwise. And that just what you said, Emma.

Emma: Yes, exactly. My great-grandpa had a famous saying, he probably stole it from someone else. So if you know the real source, let me know. But he said, believe nothing that you hear in half of what you see. So I think that’s, that’s a good little summary there and we will talk to you guys all again soon about more of this and much, much more. So thanks, Brittany. We will talk to you all later.

Brittany: Talk to you later.