The Daily Stoic - The New Age of Media Manipulation | Renée DiResta

Episode Date: August 31, 2024

How information (and misinformation) spreads online continues to change with the media landscape. Renée DiResta and Ryan continue their conversation on the role of podcasts as a medium, the pitfalls of audience capture, and the dynamics of social media silos. They talk about the ethical responsibilities of influencers and podcasters, the influence of personal relationships in media, and the impact of counter speech. Renée DiResta is a technical research manager at Stanford Internet Observatory and has briefed world leaders, advised Congress, the State Department, and a myriad of organizations on how online manipulation can take different forms. 🎙️ Don't forget to listen to Part 1 of Renée's interview! Apple Podcasts, Spotify, & WonderyRenée's book, Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality, is all about the virtual rumor mill and how niche propagandists can shape public opinion.You can follow Renée on X @noUpside, or check out her website reneediresta.com. She was also featured in Netflix’s documentary, The Social Dilemma which came out in 2020.📚 Grab a copy of Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality at The Painted Porch | https://www.thepaintedporch.com📕 Trust Me I’m Lying by Ryan Holiday | https://www.thepaintedporch.com📚 Grab a copy of The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism by Upton Sinclair | https://www.thepaintedporch.com/✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Welcome to the weekend edition of The Daily Stoic. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something to help you live up to those four stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stoic philosophers. We explore at length how these stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have a little bit more space, when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal, and most importantly, to prepare for what the week ahead may bring.

Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. Obviously you are listening to a podcast here, but it's funny, I was just texting with Rich Roll and we were sort of lamenting some people we know whose minds have kind of been broken. Like they're just, they've become sort of

politically radicalized. They tweet and say weird shit, and I was like, you know what, man? I was like, I'm starting to think podcasts might not be good for your brain. Like, just having hours and hours of audio jammed into your brain might not be good for you, and then I was thinking of that David Foster Wallace essay,

he wrote this essay on talk radio hosts, and how the process of being a talk radio host sort of inherently puffs up your ego and makes you a crazy person because you're just spitting opinions out. Even doing this couple minute intro, it's the opposite of the muscles that I use as a writer and I don't necessarily think positive.

I love podcasts, I love listening to them, but all things in moderation. I've been really bullish on podcasts as a medium, but I'm also starting to be more aware of the downsides and I'm thinking a lot about this with what daily stoic is and how we do it. Anyways, that's why I wanted to have today's guest on. You might have listened to my part one episode

with Renee DiResta. Her book, Invisible Rulers, is all about how information spreads online and how niche propagandists can sort of shape public opinion, which is a lot of what I talk about in Trust Me I'm Lying. It's what Upton Sinclair was talking about over 100 years ago in The Brass Check, which is one of my all-time favorite books about media.

It's what Daniel Borson was talking about in The Image, all-time classic. It's what Neil Postman was talking about in Amusing Ourselves to Death, the way these forces which act upon the information or the way information spreads or what information we see or don't see or just the mechanical process

of transmitting that information, the way it shapes public opinion in human beings as well as the people making this stuff, it's just all that shapes public opinion. And then we live in the world that that public opinion creates. And so one of the things Renee and I talk about in this episode is the influences of podcasts,

what's healthy and not healthy, what are some of the driving forces of misinformation. And then we talk really practically because she found herself when she sort of became politically engaged with some of this stuff in her home state of California, like just became this sort of like target for harassment and you know attacks which I've experienced also myself and we talked about some really sort of stoic ideas for dealing with that. She's a technical researcher at the Stanford Internet

Observatory. She's briefed world leaders, advised Congress, the State Department, and many, many other organizations. And I think her book is super important. Invisible Rulers, The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality. She was featured in the Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma, which everyone raves about, which came out in 2020.

You can follow her on Twitter, at NoUpside. I would say I don't recommend doing that not following her just spend literally no time on Twitter It's not good for your brain and I'm not even gonna call it X I just call Twitter and you can check out of her website Renee to rest up But definitely check out invisible rulers the people who turn lies into reality I'll link to that and her work was fascinating and also this interview was recorded quite a bit ago But I was talking to her right before I left for Australia and she gave us and our family some wonderful travel tips,

which made our trip richer. So thank you to her for that also and enjoy this episode. I would be curious your thoughts on podcasting as a medium because I had such high hopes for it as a medium. And when I was writing the updated version of Trust Me In My Lying, I was talking about podcasting as a positive medium in that it's subscriber based. Like, instead of just like random viral things, like audio is not super viral or it wasn't

then it's long form. So it's not like Twitter then being like 140 characters where it's trying to like shorten and strip things of nuance. Like I think it's wonderful for people to have a two hour conversation. And then also from an advertising medium, it sort of sponsorships upfront, not this kind of real time, like however many pages you get, you monetize that many ads. I thought it was going to be somewhat immune from the consequences or the toxic incentives that have kind of ruined those first generation of media things. And now I'm more and more convinced that, like, as you said, you look at the 2016 election, you think content farms, you think Facebook advertising and targeting, and then bots being the sort of source of the disinformation that kind of broke the country's brain in this pivotal moment. When I look at 2020 through now, I'm actually

thinking podcasts are the root of the problem in a way that I wouldn't have anticipated. I think it's different, I guess, would be my answer, which maybe is not satisfying. But it's the same thing as like the argument you're making is the same argument for like newsletters, right? This is the argument that the Substack guys have made.

And I really liked them. I think they're- Yeah, there's always some invention that's gonna improve it, and actually it's- Right, well, because the question is like, what is the bad thing, right? And I think people really want there to be one bad thing. And so for a long time, you talk about,

and I did this too in 2017, oh, my rather simplistic diagnosis of the world then was like, oh, it's the advertising based business model. It's the targetability. Now the targetability on a centralized platform is like, it does have the impact of pushing people into silos. Like it just does. And that's because everything is curated and your attention is finite and the platform wants you there and not on another platform. And this is the dynamic that determines the curation in your feed. And so you do see, you know, Substack and other folks being like, okay, well, now we're going to move to subscription models. But I do think that then you have a very different type of audience capture, right? Where you know that the audience is there.

Like this becomes your livelihood for a lot of people, right? And podcasting is, I think, the same thing. You have your audience. You want to keep your audience there. And so telling your audience what they don't want to hear is not necessarily the best path to maintaining that audience and to continuing good business.

I think you may have an audience, like you, I think, probably do, right? That prizes sort of reflectivity and nuance and things like that, but that's also because that's the community that you've curated, right? So ultimately, I think what it does come down to is the... I can't remember who said it, like the phrase, like the problem with social media is people. It is in fact that, right? It's the human nature of like, we might like to hear more of what we want to hear and whether that's an advertising-based kind of model that leads to particular curation mechanisms and structuring of a feed.

When people are then kind of committing their capital, like subscribing to or patronizing a person, unless that person is really prioritizing not telling them what they want to hear, you do see that audience capture phenomenon beginning to start. And it's very siloed. That's the other thing I'll say, which is podcasts, sometimes it's just, it's hard to know what has been said. So there's on social media, everything's largely out there in the open unless it's happening in some closed group. More and more things do happen in closed groups because people don't want the visibility of having public conversations. Now they know the internet might come for them and that's scary. Podcasts, I think, you know, I'm like with like a finite number of hours in the day sometimes

I'm like, can I find a transcript of this? I'd like to read that conversation where I can digest it in, you know, five minutes as opposed to two hours or a sub stack where it's actually paywalled, right? Where I'm like, okay, what happens below the fold? I don't know. Yeah. You know, it's a different form of engaging that the intersection between attention, monetization and human nature. So I don't know that I say it's like better or worse.

I think that, again, the idea that it eliminates the bad side of tribalism or the other ideas that, you know, very idealistic people put forth. I don't think that's true. I think it just manifests differently. Yeah, the problem with media is people. It's like there is no fake news. We're the fake news basically. But what I think is interesting with with podcasts, and I guess this is true for all the mediums and what I was trying to say in my book, and I think you say it well in yours, is like the problem is also wherever there are people, there are going

to be bad actors that try to shape or direct those people, right? And I think what you find is that the kooks or the ideologues or the people with an agenda figure out the tools first and fastest and most effectively. So it's like, I thought podcasts would be this awesome thing and they are this awesome thing, but then you're watching, oh, okay,

people who can have access to legacy media, I'm talking about politicians, leaders, companies, they're fine, the system's working for them. And so it's the people who have the crazy ideas that have to go towards the new medium with the least resistance. And so like, for instance, I got invited to this thing that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was doing, where it was like,

what I deduced is he's clearly flying around the country and having podcasting dinners, where it was like, what I deduced is he's clearly flying around the country and having podcasting dinners where he has like a dinner and then he invites the podcasters who live in that town to come, you have to pay, so he's raising money. And then what he's doing is he's seeding ideas to these people who are gonna then go back to their audience and then some percentage of them will also have him on.

And I'm like, it was just fascinating to me, okay, yeah, here's this person who he's finding the media outlets that are being neglected by the bigger candidates or the people who have public platforms in some way are not thinking, hey, how do I get out and talk on every single platform to get these ideas out there? And so you end up seeding the field and then these people dominate those spaces. He's a master, he's probably the great- He is, he's very, very good.

He's very good at what he does. He made like $8 million last year, like as an influence grifter. I think it's fascinating. You know, we dealt with him in 2015 during that long, wanted to get passed in California, right? And, you know, and we had very particular ways of dealing with it just as like activist moms, which was like,

well, we're going to mock the shit out of this actually. And it was kind of fascinating to watch. Media generally will write debunking articles. I was actually reading one on my way over here. They sort of dredge up some controversy from the past or something. But what I think they don't necessarily understand is they're speaking to the choir at that point. The people who are reading The Daily Beast are going to nod along and be like, yes, totally.

But it's not actually reaching the base. It's not showing up there in that conversation. So it's different conversations happening in completely different places. What you said about the people who uncover things first. So I study what we call adversarial abuse online. And the adversary varies. but inevitably the first people to pull in and use new and novel technology

are spammers and scammers 100% of the time. When people are talking about generative AI and being very afraid of like the political implications, I'm like, you know, it's actually the spammers and scammers who have been on it, right? That's what you see all over Facebook. Like it's documented. These are people who are like,

I can take my costs to operate down. I can improve my margins. I can reach new people. I can do things where the rules haven't been written yet. And so you see it there first. And then you do see the thing that was interesting, and you're actually correct about this, people who don't have access to major media spaces have also always been early adopters of social media because it is so user created, right?

We all have the power to say whatever we want at this point. And you see this reflected also in how institutions react, which is, like I said, dealing with RFK Jr. in 2015 and this vaccine law in California we wanted to pass, he continued to build a social media following over the years. Platforms struggled to figure out what to do about that, right? Where you actually see him starting to get, he's starting to raise hackles is during the Samoa measles outbreak of 2019. So it's actually pre-COVID where about 85 kids died in that outbreak.

And this is where you see the platforms begin to realize that Children's Health Defense and some of the other organizations, Children's Health Defense was absolutely instrumental in the propaganda around measles vaccines in Samoa because there was a terrible accident in which nurses had mixed a vial of a vaccine, not with water, but with some sort of muscle relaxant, and two kids died from a vaccine in Samoa, leading to the government halting the program as they tried to figure out what had happened. They didn't realize that this was a nurse accident at the time. And Children's Health Defense is beating the drum about the measles vaccine killing kids

and goes on and on and on. And as the result of the finding becomes apparent, they never communicate to their audience that this is what actually happened, that this was a horrible medical accident. And instead they just continue to propagate, you know, that type of fear and suspicion. And so you see the role that they play in these moments, like, again, having the sort of real-world impact as all of a sudden there's a measles outbreak in Samoa

about a year after the program's halted, and they institute a mandatory vaccine campaign because literally 85 children have died or are dying at the time. And these are kids under five, right? And so you see the government trying to, you know, to emergency vaccinate little kids. And the same audiences are out there attacking the government of Samoa on its Facebook page saying, no, it's the vaccine that caused the outbreak. No,

it's the vaccine that's killing the kids. And again, this is long prior to COVID. Then you see Facebook trying to figure out, okay, what do we do about this now? kids. And again, this is long prior to COVID. Then you see Facebook trying to figure out, okay, what do we do about this now? And you start to see them try and react. But it is that you don't see... So they have really dominated the social media ecosystem. They are the best at getting their message out. And then you see the government kind of putting out

its statements and quotes in the media, on television. They don't have that networked infrastructure. Nothing that they say is going viral. So don't have that networked infrastructure. Nothing that they say is going viral. So it's a completely different playing field. And you see this happen over and over and over again, where the institution thinks like, oh, well, we're just going to get our message out in the Washington Post. And then people are going to believe us and everything is going to go back to normal. And they don't realize that that sort of like people get invested when they participate is the other thing. And that's why when people are participating, as much as we might joke around about it being

slacktivism or not actually having an impact, for them, it's having an impact, right? It's giving them the satisfaction. The consequential thing in their life. Yeah. Like it is a thing that they feel that they are able to do. They may not have any power to make a change in the real world, but here online they can. And so it provides them with that desire to feel like they're doing something. And this dynamic that's happening over here on

the internet versus like the occasional pronouncements from on high in the media are two completely different ways of communicating. And, you know, ordinary people are spending their time over here now. Hey, I'm Mike Corey, the host of Wondery's podcast Against the Odds. In each episode, we share thrilling true stories of survival, putting you in the shoes of the people who lived to tell the tale. In our next season, it's July 6th, 1988, and workers are settling into the night shift aboard Piper Alpha, the world's largest offshore oil rig.

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You guys, on this podcast, we're gonna make some picks, talk some shit, and hopefully make you some money in the process. I'm your host, Annie Agar. So here's how this show's gonna work, okay? We're gonna run through the weekly slate of NFL and college football matchups, breaking them down into very serious categories

like no offense. No offense, Travis Kelsey, but you gotta step up your game if Pat Mahomes is saying the Chiefs need to have more fun this year. We're also handing out a series of awards and making picks for the top storylines surrounding the world of football. Awards like the He May Have a Point Award for the wide receiver that's most justifiably bitter. Is it Brandon Iuke, T Higgins or Devante Adams?

Plus on Thursdays we're doing an exclusive bonus episode on Wondery Plus where I share my fantasy football picks ahead of Thursday Night Football and the weekend's matchups. Your fantasy league is as good as locked in. Follow the offensive line on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can access bonus episodes and listen ad free right now by joining Wondery+. And that influence that they accumulate online becomes its own sort of currency or form of power, right? So I think it's, I've been fascinated with friends of mine who will platform some of

these people. And I know they don't actually think this or are not outright crazy. Maybe they're flirting with it, but they go, this person has a big audience, right? And so there's this kind of like, when everyone's kind of an influencer and they're not thinking, hey, what's true or not? Or what do I believe or not? Or what are my responsibilities or not? They're thinking, will this do well?

Will this generate a reaction? So everyone's kind of this like weird professional wrestler, not doing professional wrestling, but like real consequences are a result of this. And it's hard to figure out the best way doing professional wrestling, but like real consequences are a result of this. And it's hard to figure out the best way to communicate to people like this is real and it matters and it has consequences. Yeah and also you know for a while I spent a lot of time actually trying to talk to

conservative podcasters right and I like them. I like arguing. I think it's fun. You know I have I have no problem doing it. What was always funny to me about it trying to talk to conservative podcasters, right? And I like them. I like arguing. I think it's fun. I have no problem doing it. What was always funny to me about it was like, you would get shit from like the liberals who followed you that you had gone on there to even do it, right? And it just turned into like, you had to stay within the bounds of who your kind of core

group found acceptable. And if you deviated from that, if you did left went on far left, I sort of identify center left roughly, you would go on far left and then you would get like, you would get shit or you would go on right and you would get shit. And so you just found yourself in this position of like,

okay, but there's this very narrow space where I can talk and we're gonna nod along with each other and we're not going to get anywhere. But what is the value of going and doing those other things? I feel like it's actually quite high. It just becomes a question of, you see these little network graphs sometimes being made of so and so talk to so and so who talked to so and so, and then through the transit of property, you naturally absorb all of their opinions or something. And it's kind of exhausting, actually. I don't know what you do to break out of that,

sort of just saying, well, OK, I'm just going to keep doing it. Isn't that a big part of it? So part of the act that they're so good at is they say absolutely crazy things or absolutely dangerous things. Like, if this were to know, they'll say something and then you or me or someone will, knows this person that you go,

hey, I wanna go talk to that audience. So you go on the podcast and then while you're there, they seem reasonable and they seem nice and you wanna be polite, right? And so there is also this, I think one of the insidious parts about it is these people become sort of very radicalized, have absolutely abhorrent ideas that are directly responsible, not just for like the collapse of, you know, sort of trust in institutions or certain policies, but like kids die because of what you're talking about. Right? And then you know the person who's saying these things, right, you know them, they're friendly, they're personable. And then, so there's this kind of reluctance

to like call a spade a spade in person directly. And I've felt it myself, but the result is it kind of normalize it. Part of what they're doing is using personal relationships and the appearance of reasonability to shield the significance of what they're doing is using personal relationships and the appearance of reasonability to shield the significance of what they're saying or they're advocating for or what they're doing and normalizing, they're exploiting the personal connection

to not be ostracized, which is what they should be. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, I think that question of how do you engage, I think the other piece of it though is how do you engage if you want to try to maybe pull someone back in a sense, right? I was going to ask you about that. Yeah. And I don't know.

I really don't. I mean, you're obviously, you've been in the public eye and visible for a very, very long time and you write books teaching people how to think about that from a philosophical standpoint. I don't. I mean, I feel like a lot of what I do is I like chronicle the decline of the Republic without necessarily having as much of a sense of how do you fix it? You mentioned early on like when you become the character, right? And for me, that was like a wild experience of, all right, can I use this in a way almost to... Maybe this is like my next book, right?

How do you respond? How do you, you know, what are the ways in which, you know, to what extent can you pull people back? I remember there was a person who I've known for a very long time and we're actually in a DM group all through COVID, right? And as the weird conspiracy theories about my work started, he wrote this article and he included the sentence like, who is Renee DiResta? And I was like, are you fucking kidding me? What are you talking about? We've

been in a DM group for three years. You know exactly who I am. In fact, we were in a DM group all through the 2020 election, all through COVID. I have the idea that this who is nonsense. That actually I felt was like, that was the most outraged I've been throughout half of this because I felt like, okay, you know, when it's some right wing rando doing it, I get it, right? It's wrestling, we're all in it, it's a contact sport, you're gonna send me some stupid media request,

I'm gonna front run it, we're gonna get our, you know, this is how we're gonna play the game, like fine, I understand, I'm not naive. But when it. We're going to get our, you know, this is how we're going to play the game. Like, fine, I understand. I'm not naive. But when it comes from somebody who actually knows you, that was where I was like, okay, this is absolutely inexcusable. And I actually really didn't know how the hell do I respond to that one? Do I-

How did you respond? I sent an outraged message into the group chat first. I was like, I'm not even going to pretend this doesn't bother me. This actually bothers me a lot because it felt like a betrayal in a sense. It felt like a betrayal for the most meaningless internet points. What are you going to get? You're getting a momentary boost from this. Rather than saying, I know her, I'll

have her on, let's ask her questions or something along those lines. It just turned into like, I'm going to pretend that we don't even have a relationship and mine this moment for content. And I just found it just so disappointing also on a, okay, I guess you're really not who I thought you were. Like what a disappointment this is. And this was actually at a time when I was trying to deal with my institution not wanting me to say anything. And this is where your point about you think that there are adults in the room. And so I'm like, okay, well, the comms people, surely they know what they're doing. And this is the thing that happens where even though you've watched failure happen a million times in a million different ways with institutional comms, you feel like, surely they know what they're doing. This is like the sort of thing that happens where,

even though you've watched failure happen a million times in a million different ways with institutional comms, you feel like maybe this time it's different and it's not, but you still kind of delude yourself momentarily into thinking it will be. And so I really said nothing for a very long time, actually. And so as this was happening, I was like, am I gonna get in trouble for calling attention

to it? Am I going to have to deal with somebody being mad at me for raising it? And then what do I get by raising it? Do I get my side outraged at him? Does that serve me really? And I just felt sort of paralyzed, I guess is the word, by the question of like, what do you do in that moment? Because again, when it's regular media, the game is clear. We all know what's going to happen. We all know how we're going to play.

The rules of engagement are very clear. But when it's that sort of thing, I thought like, do I want to be in this back and forth? Like, yeah, I can get some internet support, I can get a couple thousand likes on this dunk, you know, that sort of thing. But like, what does that actually get me? I don't know that it gets me anything. And so, I think I made some like kind of, you know, half-hearted post on Blue Sky or something at the time and then really just like, you know, raged about it in a DM group with friends for an hour and that was the end of it. What do you do? What do you do when someone you know sends you

something that's like obviously nuts or weird or like I go back and forth on that. Sometimes I ignore it. Sometimes I try to point by point explain it. Sometimes I respond in frustration, but this is like, what you do about it, systemically or globally, it's probably nothing because we may just be fucked. One on one, I think it works. So what do you, but what works best?

How do you extinguish crazy? I don't think you extinguish it necessarily, but I've done it both directions. Sometimes it's sent to me like, what do you think of this? What do you think of this? Sometimes, and this happened actually quite a bit during COVID, again, we were all in the... I don't know if you guys are like this too, but really we were all in the DMs, right?

Everybody had WhatsApp groups at this point, clubhouse groups, that kind of thing. And I had one person where we sort of maybe ideologically agreed like 25% of the time as a baseline. But again, these were like very ideologically diverse friend groups. There was never an issue. But what he would periodically send was things where he'd be absolutely like mad with outrage about something like, how do you not speak out against this? Don't you think this is crazy? Don't you think this is terrible? And sometimes it was like, you know, maybe on DEI or race or trans, or like pick your culture war topic, abortion sometimes.

And I would say like, you have to understand, like I don't even see this. Like this is so squarely in like your little bubble that the only, that you are the first person who has even shown me that this is a moment of outrage on the internet. Yeah. Like I- This exists only to you.

Exactly. And so I would try to point out, I can send you 30 things that you've probably never seen that the center left is extremely upset about right now today. And you'll see then maybe that we're not even having a conversation at this point. Like you think that I should be speaking out

against this thing that I do not even see. And then other times it would be like actually engaging on the merits, right? Which is, okay, let's have a conversation about this, good faith conversation on the merits. Here's why I think this is ridiculous. Here's why I think this sourcing is wrong. Here's how.

Sometimes what I do is I've actually found that sometimes pointing out the weasel words is actually a more effective way of responding. So like, I'm not going to debunk and fact check every point in this, you know, 4,000 word article. What I am going to say is like, look how often the word they is used. Look how often the word linked to or the phrase linked to appears. Like what is linked to? Yeah, maybe.

Again, for me, this was sort of like a personal experience when I would watch how people would write around the thing that they wanted to say about me. Right? I remember getting one media inquiry that was literally like, I was moderating a panel for the Obama Foundation's, some Obama Foundation conference moderating, you know, I didn't pick my panelists. They were assigned to me. I was just asked to go there and ask them questions and have a dialogue. And Nicole Hannah-Jones was one of the people on the panel at the 1619 Project. You know, I am not particularly ideologically aligned with everything Nicole Hannah-Jones says, but it's not my job as a moderator to be.

It's to have a conversation, right? This is why I'm there. And right wing media reaches out with this inquiry that's like, we're going to write that we're writing that you're moderating this panel. And again, you start to see the article comes out, you know, we need a comment on that you're moderating the panel. And I was like, what do you want me to comment on? Like, do you want me to explain what a panel is or what moderating is?

Like, what is the thing I'm being asked to comment on here? And then of course, you know, it turns into like, is linked to, right? Deresta, who is linked to? And then, you know, it's just this transitive property of bad people. They just want to get a constellation of people that are boogeymen in that media ecosystem. And of course, Nikole Hannah-Jones was a million also.

And so this is this article about literally like the panel hadn't even happened yet. There was not even anything to write that was objectionable related to the conversation or anything she or I said. It was merely the fact that two people that they did not like were gonna be on stage at the same time at an event put on by a president that they do not like. And so this was like catnip.

And I just thought like, it's incredible to me that this is gonna be a news article. And when you see these stories happen, when you see the, like when you know what is real versus you see these weasel words that are linked to connected with, literally like you're on a podcast with another person, you're linked to them then at that point and this is how the sausage is made. And I kind of like what you describe in your book actually is I've been more on a kick of like, can I explain

how the sausage is made? So I'll screenshot the email. Here's the inquiry I got. Here's what I sent back. Here's the article that came out. Let's talk about what just happened here. I'm not gonna bother refuting the points in the article. It's a waste of my time. It's a waste of your time to read that because the entire point is that this is a spectacle.

And let me explain to you how the construct of the spectacle actually works. So that's how I've chosen to respond a lot of the time. Only one-on-one will I get into conversations about the merits at this point. And that's because a lot of the time it is, some of it is facts, but some of it is values. How do I weight this piece of information? The information might be the same, but how we choose to weight it, what we choose to prioritize is different. And that's where I feel like those conversations

are better in small groups. Yeah, I've been struggling with like, as I know a lot of these people, because they weren't crazy not that long ago. And some cases I've done business with them, some cases were friends, they've been to my house, I've been to their house. And then this tension of like,

okay, well, what I think they're doing is abhorrent. I think they've like, not just lost the threat, I think like something's wrong, like something's happened in their brain. And the tension between ignoring, as we said, we don't have to have an opinion, they're not me, I don't control what they do. And one's obligation when no one,

that story about the emperor having no clothes. I think a lot of the misinformation we have is a result of people who are not well in some cases, just sort of being not well publicly on the internet. And then other people not wanting to pick on that person, other people not wanting to call that person out, other people not wanting the hassle of their crazy fans being on them.

I think that's actually a big part of it. Yeah. And so you're just like, so we're just going to sit here and watch this person spin off into delusions and insanity, even though we know that some people are not recognizing, like some members of the audience are not recognizing what's happening and making real consequential decisions based on this information. I go back and forth as to like

what the proper response to that is. I think it is actually that concern or like the question of is it worth dealing with the crazy crowd? Is a huge, huge part of it. And that's where, as much as you can talk about bridging divides in real life, and there are a lot of great groups that are doing this, Better Angels is one

of them, there's a few of them that are trying to say, how can you reduce the belief that your political opposition is actually an enemy and that we must vanquish them kind of sense of the word. When it happens online, you are really committing to a day at minimum of being barraged by people. And that does become... It has a significant chilling effect, actually. And that's where I think the question of... We talk about counter-speech.

I mean, I do in the book too, right? How do you have effective counter-speech? The cost of counter-speaking is real. Yeah. And they, I do in the book too, right? How do you have effective counterspeech? The cost of counterspeaking is real. Yeah. And they make it higher on purpose. Yes, exactly. And that is where I don't know what the answer is. I think this is where, as I think about, I went into academia in 2019.

I don't have a PhD. It's not a... It was something I kind of found myself in a bit accidentally. But when I think about what kind of research needs to be done, it is that question of what can you do to create that counter speech because otherwise nobody wants to have that debate. Nobody wants to challenge that idea. I mean, I'm barely on Twitter. I used to be on Twitter 24 seven.

That was like my platform, right? And then after getting, you know, after dealing with lunatics, I was just like, I'm just gonna lock it down and I can say what I wanna say on these like seven other platforms. But I also know that I am to an extent kind of like preaching to the choir when I do that, right? And so-

It's like, there's good sense in saying, hey, I'm not gonna talk about this thing. I'm not gonna wade into this discussion because I don't want the hassle of these lunatics and it's probably not gonna make a big difference. And then there's also something that's like, that's like, cowardly is the wrong word. But it's this tension between like sanity and good sense

and sort of obligation and responsibility and justice. And I don't always know how to make that balance. And I think your point of just like, hey, I'm just going to say what I think is true. And maybe that's actually the way to do it is like, instead of thinking of it as sort of speech, counter speech, like someone over here is wrong on the internet, so I must let them know that they're wrong on the internet. Maybe the proper response is, hey, let's get better at being right on the internet and more effective at communicating

what's right on the internet. Like you could argue that maybe it was always a lost cause for say the CDC in the pandemic to like convince anti-vaxxers that they were nonsense. But you know what they could have done? They could have more effectively communicated the pro-vaccine message or any of the safety protocols during the COVID.

And they did a horrendously bad job of the thing that was entirely in their control. Do you know what I mean? Like you can focus on how do I beat these people at their own game and you're probably never gonna reason people out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. But you can reason the people who are asking

for the information into the right position. And so maybe that's just the methodology. It's like, how do you just get more effective at communicating truth as you understand it and not see it as a contentious sort of discussion? Cause like, you probably shouldn't be talking to these people at all. You're liable to get infected by talking to them, you know?

I think it's, you know, this was actually our view on it during the vaccine law fight where we had, you know, it was like a bunch of mom and some dad volunteers, and they were like, we're not gonna convince the true believers to believe something different. We're here to reach the people who are on the fence or who have never heard of this bill that we want to pass or who have never thought about this idea.

And we're going to do everything that we can to reach them. And that translated into like, you know, we would not get into debates in the comment section of our Facebook page. It was not worth the time. There was a finite amount of energy and we were going to just continue to post our message. And this was like very small scale activism,

but I think it is the right instinct, I think, in a way. And I've been, I really wanna meet more comms people who do this professionally where I'm like, what is it? I'm fascinated by the field of like crisis comms and things at this point where I'm like, how do you think about that? Like, what is it you do now? What are best practices?

It's gonna sound mean, but one of the realities that I have figured out the hard way is, if you were good at comms, you probably wouldn't have a comms job. Right, I think you say this in the book too. You would have your own comms agency. And so there is something, it's fundamentally unfair, because you're having basically employed bureaucrats fighting against entrepreneurs, even if these

entrepreneurs over here are nuts. The economics are fundamentally different. One has potentially can make millions of dollars one, whether they do a good job or a bad job is only going to make their salary. And so so there it's it's sort of a mismatched fight. But yeah, I don't know, just being able to effectively communicate is a skill that not enough people have, and crazy people care so much

that they accidentally get good at it. What's up guys, it's your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season, and let me tell you, it's too good. And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay? Every episode, I bring on a friend and have a real conversation.

And I don't mean just friends, I mean the likes of Amy Poehler, Kel Mitchell, Vivica Fox, the list goes on. So follow, watch, and listen to Baby. This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I think it's also, you probably see this,

I feel like it's the rhetoric piece. I started going back and literally reading like rhetoric textbooks and propaganda textbooks and just being like, this is very old art. You know? Very old, sure. Yeah, you start with Bernays. Like, Bernays figured this stuff out. Right, in the 1920s. And even before that, you know. Very old, sure. Yeah, you start with Bernays. Like, Bernays figured this stuff out.

Right, in the 1920s. And even before that, you know, hundreds of years before, you have people in ancient- Demagogues are not new. Right, demagogues are not new. So this question of, you know, reading old rhetoric books and things like this and just looking at what are the ways

in which the communication works and the age of the internet. It is, what is the thing that is going to make this go viral? And I spend a lot of time looking at that, even in my own feed, where I'm like, why did this post, not even written by me, just more like, why did this post, why did it do well? And it's either, sometimes it's just pure positivity.

I do think that people are really like, oh my God, this is why people love cats, right? It is just that like, here is like a heartwarming, wholesome story and it's fantastic that I'm seeing this on the internet because I never see this. I always see like hate and rage. So there's the pure positivity or there's the like, I am going to explain a thing that I have some sort

of deep expertise in. I'm going to break it down and you're going to get like three tweets. And then I think there's like a feeling of like, okay, I've just learned something. Like there's an appreciation there. But then the last part is really like, here is my moral outrage.

And you see this a lot. It's indignation. I think indignation really, really works. It's a powerful, high valence emotion. Yeah. Well, I've seen this with what I do, right? So like I'm not academically trained in ancient philosophy in any way.

And I've written these books, I'm now associated with this thing. And so sometimes people will go, right? So like, I'm not academically trained in ancient philosophy in any way. And I've written these books, I'm now associated with this thing. And so sometimes people will go, well, you know, he's not as smart as so-and-so, or he is not as qualified as so-and-so, this person writes about it better. And there, I think sometimes there can be some resentment

from academics that like my books are more popular than someone who's studied this thing for 50 years. And I sort of go, I mean, have at it, right? Like, go for it. Like, I would love for you to be more popular than someone who's studied this thing for 50 years. And I sort of go, I mean, have at it, right? Like, go for it. Like, I would love for you to be more popular. But in my case, writing about an obscure school of ancient philosophy, it's not easy. And making it interesting to people who are not interested in that thing is hard. And and sometimes people just think being right about something

or caring about something is sufficient to reach a mass audience for it. And there's a skill and a science to it and an understanding to it. And there has to be an openness to using different tools and different mediums. And if those people are not going to do it, whether we're talking about stoicism or talking about public health,

what you're effectively doing is seeding the field to someone else. And you're not always gonna like how those people do it. And so what I was trying to say in Trust Me I'm Lying, it's like, hey, look, I'm using this stuff to sell like t-shirts or books, low stakes items. Somebody else is gonna figure, somebody else who's much more motivated than me

or my clients is gonna do it for things that are much worse. And if you don't figure out how to either close these loopholes or figure out how to, in the army they talk about, control the battle space. If you don't figure out how to control the these loopholes or figure out how to in the Army they talk about control the battle space. If you don't figure out how to control the battle space, you are ceding it to someone else and you are not going to like what they do with that space. Yeah, that's exactly right. One thing that I have liked about your work is you tell stories.

And that's what my team at Stanford, we were never, the motivating factor was never to put out academic papers, right? We did that. We kind of had to, you know, kind of have to like check the box. But it was how do you explain to people in this moment when it matters why they see a thing that they see or how a thing works or how a scam works or how to think about some, you know, new and like how to think about generative AI, for example, right? How do we explain this using compelling stories?

And it's a very different style of writing. It's a very different style of thinking, right? You want people to hear the story and to go with it. And I remember, again, the vaccine law in California, nothing we did was to put out stats and fact checks and here is why measles vaccines are very important, why you need this. We're gonna argue with you about the science of how it works. Right, we're not gonna do that.

We're gonna, here's a kid with leukemia who can't go to school right now, right? And that's where I have found that even during COVID, the thing that we saw most often, the thing that went most viral was human stories. And the people who tried to put out counterhuman stories, the public health folks, were the frontline doctors, not the institutions.

They were out there with the stats and the droplets traveling X number of feet at this velocity or whatever. And then you've got the doctors who are like, here's the morgue truck parked outside my hospital. And one thing that we kept trying to think about is how do you elevate those people? How do you make those people your communicators? When I remember, again, the story I was telling about measles and Samoa and stuff like that. So Facebook then decides, okay, well, we have some problems here. What do we do about this? And holding aside the specifics of that particular crisis, they then have to ask questions like

when people are searching for information, what do I show them? I remember having a conversation with somebody at the platform who was like, we can up level, we can return a carousel of CDC content up at the top of the page and no one will read it and no one will share it. It's not interesting and you can't, you're fighting like, you're like bringing facts to a knife fight over here. And the question of what do you surface, who is both authoritative enough and also interesting enough.

And there were huge gaps there. And that I think positioned us, it put us in the absolute worst possible place. And I'm not sure that that lesson was really internalized, unfortunately. Like, I don't think that that's really been, that that was the takeaway for people. So you gotta explain how the system works and then why this is a preferable outcome or process than this one. And yeah, I think politically we're doing a horrible job of that. I was thinking of one more Mark Cerullo's quote. We were talking about preaching to the converted people

or not converted people. He has this quote, he says like, okay, so you meet a shameless person or frustrating or annoying person. And he goes, ask yourself, is a world without such people possible? Is there a world without shameless or annoying or incorrect people possible?

And you go, no, of course not. And then, so he's like, okay, so this is one of them. Like they're a percentage of a whole. You have to accept that and move on. And I thought about this during the vaccine stuff. I thought about during COVID. I think about it during politics. It's like, look, you were never gonna get to 100%.

That doesn't exist. You're never gonna get to 100%. So 5%, 10%, 20%, there's some number of people who are just off the table for you. The sooner you accept that and stop arguing with those people, then you can reach the 80%, the 85%, the 90%, or whatever. And we just, I find from a communication standpoint, people just spend all their time arguing with the people that are the percentage that was always gonna exist

and have always existed. There's always been crazy people. There's always been people who are the percentage that was always gonna exist and have always existed. There's always been crazy people. There's always been people who are wrong. There's always just been mercenary people and bad actors. And like, it's our outrage that that exists that bogs us down. And then what we're doing is ignoring what's actually a pretty sizable majority

that is persuadable or is convincing, is interested. And not only are we ignoring them, but we're actually drawing more attention to these people, the bad people who are then exposing themselves to the larger group. And so it's this super ineffective, like naive sense of the world that I think is at the root of why we can't seem to get ourselves on some of these messes.

How do you think about in the work that you did or do that where is the role for positive influence, if you will? How do you think about that? Conscripting people into it maybe, or making people feel that they have maybe the same sort of perhaps idealistic, but kind of ethical underpinnings that journalism did eventually evolve into, you know, is there a

mechanism for convincing influencers that that is actually like, not a bad framework to operate under? Yeah, it's funny, I think one of the big things that helped turn journalism around from the yellow journalism was the invention of like, journalism awards, there was clubs, they articulated like a code of conduct or in like created a sort of set of cultural assumptions about what it meant. And all these things were limiting, I'm sure in many ways, and frustrating in other ways, and elitist in some ways. But it had the effect of acting on

as a governor against some of the either naked self interest or sort of worst human impulses. And so yeah, I try I think about this is obviously what my new book is about. But like, what is the what is the code of conduct or bylaws for your profession? You can't enforce it on other people, but you can you can set them for yourself. And then I think by communicating about them and talking about them, you can create a positive culture where people are aspiring to be like those things. And look, we've seen positive examples of these in

positive feedback loops in history, like Whole Foods has created, obviously, a whole bunch of incentives, some of it's nonsense. And some of it is like sort of corporate greenwashing, but where people are now competing to be more ethical as opposed to cheaper Or or you know have higher standards instead of lower standards And I think the best way to do that is not sort of mandated from on high But by creating a powerful example that is working and successful and then people want to be more Like that thing and so we can't just dismiss the role of good people doing good

things, talking about why they do it their way. And hopefully, that becomes contagious also. And they're like, there's a handful of accounts out there. And people out there are like, they're like, I really like that person. I really like the standards they set. If more people were like this, it would be better. And that sort of example, I think is important. And yeah, the government didn't come in and say, hey, this is how journalism has to be.

The profession policed itself, but it did some nasty stuff along the way. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And it was a fascinating history, I think. I spent a bunch of time in the book trying to connect the dots back to those periods. I do think that there's the sense of these kind

of halcyon days of Dan Rather or whomever being this sort of moral authority and kind of shedding a light on like, it wasn't, we have a kind of rosy view of that period, not necessarily accurate, but what is the future of a lot of these things? You're seeing influencers, you're seeing the FTC start to come in in some ways like, hey, from a, moving beyond ethics to consumer protection, you're starting to see, the FEC has largely punted, right? It doesn't want to have to weigh in. I think some lawsuits, some of the defamation lawsuits

and stuff will kind of set some absolute bottom lines like you can't do X. But ultimately I think it's like, look, a court can come in and say, look, Alex Jones, you can't say this, and here are the consequences for having said this. And that's obviously powerful, but I think what actually has to happen is,

and I can't understand why this isn't happening, is people need to stop fucking having them on. Like, I just don't understand what that is. I think we're in this arc of contrarianism is the highest good kind of model, which is the reflexive contrarianism. It's not a thoughtful contrarianism. These people hate this person. I like them. Yeah, exactly. And so especially as- That's a good way to be real stupid and get yourself... Narratives around... Right, exactly. It's just the... This is like what they don't want

you to hear. And so we're going to have this person on because it is... But it does galvanize attention, right? I mean, I remember when like, it was like Rogan or something had him back on at some point and just kind of let him talk. Right. And that's the other piece where every now and then I'm like, come on, like just maybe make a counterpoint somewhere in that monologue. That's been the problem with podcasting is that it's very vulnerable as a medium if you, the host or person don't insist on there being some sort of truth. It becomes this kind of both sidesism or just like, you don't realize you're platforming the idea and some sort of truth. It becomes this kind of both sidesism or just like you don't realize you're platforming the idea and some percentage of people are hearing it for the first time and liking it. And that you have a responsibility to not do that.

There was like a whole media cycle about that though, about Rogan having him on, right? There again this notion of like the sort of the weird spectacle, the image if you will, where like man has man on podcast and then there's an entire media cycle about the ethics of that, which is fine. It's a reasonable question. But then it turns into like the media doesn't want you to hear him. And so it drives more attention to it in a way. And so this question of like, how do you handle the sort of multi tiered dynamics that are going to come in as one group is outraged and another group doubles down and so on and so forth. And it just becomes like, well, we're sticking it to those guys over there.

And, and that's really kind of what drives our politics at this point. You want to go check out some books? Yeah, let's do it. If you want to come see me talk, you want to see me get over some of my own stage, right? And you want to ask questions and hang out a bit. I would love to see you doing events in London, Rotterdam, and Dublin in early November and then after that Vancouver and Toronto. This is all basically the 12th through the 20th so it's going to be a busy November for

me. So grab tickets, ryanholiday.net slash tour. Both the events in Australia sold out so these will sell out also so grab your tickets. I'll see you all soon. Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it. I'll see you next episode. If you like The Daily Stoic and thanks for listening, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. And before you go, would you tell

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