The Daily Zeitgeist - Russia Hacks US History, Facebook Owns You 10.13.17
Episode Date: October 13, 2017In episode 5, Jack & Miles are joined by comedian Laci Mosley to discuss Asheville airport bomb, Russia messing with the US for years, Toyota's ad campaigns for different races, Matt Damon's comme...nts on Weinstein, & more. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated.
Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks.
She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state.
Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring
in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations
as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk
Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
In California during the summer of 1975,
within the span of 17 days and less than 90 miles,
two women did something no other woman had done before,
try to assassinate the president of the United States.
One was the protege of Charles Manson.
26-year-old Lynette Fromm, nickname Squeaky.
The other, a middle-aged housewife
working undercover for the FBI.
Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore.
The story of one strange and violent summer.
This season on the new podcast, Rip Current.
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There's so much beauty in Mexican culture.
Like mariachis, delicious cuisine, and even lucha libre.
Join us for the new podcast, Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12-episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of lucha libre.
And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, emperor of lucha libre and a WWE superstar.
And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, Emperor of Lucha Libre, and a WWE Superstar.
Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts.
Hello, the Internet, and welcome to the Daily Zeitgeist for Friday, October 13th, 2017.
Happy Death Day, you guys.
I think that's the name of the movie that's coming out today Spooky Day
And my name's Jack O'Brien
And I am happy to be joined, as always, by my co-host, Mr. Miles Gray
Yes, I am also named Jack O'Brien
Jack O'Brien
Well, I fucked that up
Way to start this one
Alright
And we are thrilled to be joined in our third seat by Lacey Mosley.
Hey.
Hey.
You do your own dance hall siren?
I need it every time.
Let them know.
Lacey, what's the weirdest thing in your search history from the past week?
Lazy, what's the weirdest thing in your search history from the past week? The weirdest thing in my search history from the past week is rapper dark butts.
Okay.
And we don't want any context from that.
We're just going to go right into your overrated, underrated.
Okay, cool.
Google rapper dark butts and maybe you'll understand me.
Underrated, I have...
Okay, this makes me feel so bad to even say this,
but I feel like the Cash Me Outside girl as a rapper, bad baby.
Wait, is underrated?
You said underrated?
Yeah.
Oh, no.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
She's got some fire songs.
They're hitting.
Hi, bitch. Hi, hitting. Hi, bitch.
Hi, bitch.
Hi, bitch.
Like, I literally made everyone on my team come out to that on Herald Night.
We play that on Herald Night at UCB.
I'm not going to lie.
I did use that in an Instagram caption recently.
But, yo, she's fucking problematic as fuck, though.
I mean, as fuck.
But, you know, who isn't these days?
Oh, wow.
Can you explain who the Cash Me Outside girl is for our white audience? I hate as fuck, but you know, who isn't these days? Oh, wow.
Can you explain who the Cash Me Outside girl is for our white audience?
I do not know her name in real life.
It's Danielle.
Bregoli.
Danielle Bregoli. There we go.
Danielle Bregoli.
She appeared on Dr. Phil, where she got into a very heated discussion with him over her
lascivious activities as a youth and told him that she needed to cash him.
She could cash him outside.
How about that?
No, it was the audience.
Yeah.
The audience members could cash her outside.
Cash me outside.
How about that?
Yes.
How about that?
Basically meaning come outside and we can fight each other.
Dr.
Phil was like, now, what is she saying?
Yeah.
What does that mean the
and my audience is hoes it's like oh they're these but yeah and then she got signed to atlantic
signed a 360 deal with atlantic uh same you know who cardi b is also exactly they they have a new
model which is to cash in on like social media celebrities and turn them, give them music careers. But you know what?
I will say maybe she's underrated,
but I am surprised that I thought it would just be a total disaster.
And the fact that even the things are kind of even like reminiscent of
actually a good song,
they sound pretty good.
Like they flame.
Some of them aren't that bad.
And you can tell her mom dresses her in those music videos.
Oh,
because they're like, you're, if you're going to do this, you're going to wear a hooded sweatshirt zipped all the way up and jeans.
I don't want any thotty outfits.
Right.
I mean, at least they're trying.
She's young as hell.
And I heard that she's also very extra, which like, you know, like a Mariah Carey fashion.
Like one of the firms that I've gone into, she was there and she was getting carried around by a security guard.
What do you mean one of the firms?
Or like a social media firm.
I was in doing some work with them.
Okay.
I can't say who,
but she was also in the office
and they were carrying her like a baby
around the office.
That's amazing.
It was so...
I was like, spectacle.
Yes, bitch.
Give me spectacle.
My dream has always been to be in a professional sports league, get injured, and
then get carried out like a baby by, like, your teammate.
Wait, and when you say, like, literally, like, in their arms like a baby, and what was her
demeanor?
Like, she's like, that's right.
They're holding me like a baby.
Yeah, like, this is her bag.
Like, she was acting like it was not bizarre that she was being carried around this office
place. It was fantastic. Right around on my that she was being carried around this office place.
It was fantastic.
Right around on my bodyguard's back like Prince in the Club.
Yep.
Blackish, I feel like, is hella underrated.
It is fantastic, and it's only getting better on television.
Fill that Cosby void.
Oh, that's a weird phrase.
Yeah.
Ooh.
Ooh.
Just, you know, you can watch that instead um selena gomez's best friend gave
her a kidney and i feel like this did not get enough press i thought it did really i didn't
i mean i'm surprised i knew about it before you because you're like what happened i didn't
and i was just like damn it really made me think like are my best friends
drinking enough water you know yeah you're looking at your friends like oh no no no i would not
do we have the same blood type like i'm gonna get my friends together because i will be famous
enough that i'm like look y'all who's trying to throw me that liver? Yeah. All right. What's overrated? Overrated is TV reboots.
I am so tired of Hollywood just being so desperate not to become a diverse place that they're just going to resurrect any old television show from whenever.
Like Fuller House, Will & Grace, which actually killed in the ratings when it debuted.
Which one did?
Will & Grace.
Oh, it did?
It had like a three. I watch Fuller House. So house so you know don't come from my fuller no thanks
no thanks it's so it's so bad it's amazing there's plenty of amazing scripts out here i just feel
like it's fucking lazy to be digging up the grays of these old shows like that's true it is like all
these shows are from a time when diversity was considered like having one. It still is.
I love how people have masqueraded like TV is just like black as fuck and Latino as hell and like Asian.
It's not because there's one show, two shows.
Fuller House is diverse because Kimmy Gibbler has short hair.
Oh, yeah.
And she has a half Latin child.
Oh, nice.
So even though the father of that child is mad problematic anyway, but that's a whole
other.
I mean, what are you going to do?
Just fuck her house.
So it is Friday the 13th.
Just wanted to fill people in on it.
So apparently this day loses the American economy as much as $900 million.
What?
Every time it rolls around because people stay home or don't go on vacations.
This is one of those statistics that, first of all, it says as much as in front of it.
Yeah, right.
So, you know, who knows?
And as little as $1.
But nearly a billion.
Oh, who knows?
Yeah.
But it's also one of those things that, like Ouija boards, for instance, go back to, I think, you know, maybe 50 years ago when a board game company invented Ouija boards.
They're not like an ancient thing.
Similarly, only goes back to 1907 to a novel where and it was like a financial thriller that basically like told the story of a guy, a businessman who plots to crash the stock market. And that was like the first mention in the history of Friday the 13th.
There's supposedly like all these myths about it going back to the 13th century and when like a bunch of Knights Templar were arrested and tortured and know, have worked in mental hospitals where they are just like, no, it is definitely true that every full moon, like people just go bonkers.
They use that word bonkers.
Who work in mental.
It's bonkers.
To use a scientific term.
They go fucking bonkers.
All right, Miles. go fucking bonkers uh all right miles so our first story uh is sort of a uh it's not really
defining the zeitgeist type thing you know but away it demonstrates how the zeitgeist yeah right
so uh let's see last friday on october 6th a week ago uh this man, Michael Estes, went to the Asheville Regional Airport
and like just around like before 1 a.m., dressed in all black.
He had a bag with him.
They show him walk in the airport with a bag.
And then suddenly in the footage, he leaves the airport without a bag.
So cut to the alarms go off.
People are being like, there's a suspicious package.
They look inside.
Lo and behold, there is an IED in there.
Like he's made a homemade bomb out of ammonia nitrate and with like some shrapnel and a timer for the bomb to go off like in the morning, essentially.
So this man basically left a bomb at an airport. And, you know, guess guess what the coverage was like on that first well miles i'd imagine it was all over the news and just non-stop 24-hour coverage on
cnn and no fox news fox news loves terrorist attacks they probably covered it like around
the clock no no no barely any coverage oh but i left out a very important detail uh the suspect
was actually white and a man even though they are our most dangerous type of person
statistically in america they didn't cover it oh look at you jack with the woke statistics i like
you that thank you thank you yes there was a white man uh a possible terrorist although trump would
never say that uh leaving a bomb at an airport and yeah this was like a very underreported incident
i mean it took uh it took other news outlets days for actual legitimate coverage for this to come out.
Fox News did report about it, but that was just when it was a person of interest
sought after device found at airport kind of situation.
But then once the suspect was identified as this man, Michael Estes,
there is not even a hint of coverage on that website so fox
covered it like when it was just an anonymous bomb and then when they identified like okay and this
is who we're looking for they stopped covering it basically like it was almost like oh there's a
bomb at the airport here we go here we go maybe it'll turn up traditional terrorists and then
when it was like oh reveal it's a white man is like well i don't know shit about that and so it sort of you know got us thinking obviously there we see a bias
especially in like on conservative media about these things like that but also uh there was a
there was a a story about a black man who made a threat to quote do another vegas because he felt
cheated by a mobile app developer uh and, what? And that story blew up.
And, well, Jack, you looked in a sort of like –
Yeah, I just did a search of the guy's name who threatened to do another Vegas at –
I'm going to do another Vegas at you to this mobile phone company.
I think he was in New York.
The mobile phone company was in, or the app developer
was in Colorado. And when you search his name, in quotes, his full name, you get 70,000 results.
When you search Michael Estes' name, you get 35,000. So twice as many results for a guy
who threatened to do another Vegas. to a mobile phone company but a
white man who leaves a legitimate bomb in an airport half that so yeah so again it fits into
this thing you know if if it's not if it doesn't fit the narrative trump's trying to push which is
you know muslims are terrorists and that's why we need to have a travel ban that's going to get air
but if it doesn't then you know like he'll gloss over it like for like even when there was that
london bridge attack he jumped on that to just be like you know this is why we need like
tighter immigration control and even the philippines there was a casino shooting he labeled that
terrorism when it wasn't so and then when we look at people are white people actually being
perpetrators of some kind of terrorism charlotte spiel uh you know it's glossed over pretty quickly
did you see that well you probably already talked about the second protest that they had where everyone looked like way more attractive.
Yeah, we talked about Edgar.
Yeah, where Richard Spencer put on his nice suit.
He was trying to look like a fuckboy for the white supremacy movement.
But it's interesting to me because I always thought that white people had the privilege of not being a monolith and that, you know, everyone is a lone person and we all get lumped together as minorities.
Like if somebody shoots up one thing,
we're like,
God damn,
well now we all shot it up.
Like,
I remember hoping that the DC snipers weren't black.
Cause I was like,
come on,
don't do this.
You know?
Yeah.
Chris Rock had a bit like that in the early nineties.
If I read about like a serial killer,
he's like,
I'm praying in the article.
It's not black.
Cause I don't want to have to go into work tomorrow.
And they're going to be like, Hey, so did you know jerome literally next thing i know
airport security gets a lot more real got fingers in my butt so another narrative uh that seemingly
uh that you know again that trump loves to push is the one that he is owning isis bombing the
shit out of them they're they have nowhere to go and he's you know he's he's gonna do away with
islamic terrorism once and for all um and also the america first thing like we don't need to be meddling in other people's business if
it doesn't have any consequence to the u.s okay so cut to uh niger on october 4th uh there were
there was a group of uh u.s troops who were working in conjunction with some nigerian soldiers
uh in niger and they were ambushed. And four Green Berets were killed.
Two more soldiers were injured.
And again, this was like a pretty significant event.
There were loss of U.S. soldiers' lives, which clearly, you know, has been touted as one
of the most important things, especially with the NFL protests that, you know, our soldiers
are very important, the sacrifice they give.
There were no tweets about this from the White House, no mention that these soldiers uh had lost their lives not even from trump he hasn't said a thing
there hasn't been a statement out of the white house and again because it almost kind of looks
like very eerily similar to the sort of the same stakes as benghazi where you have u.s soldiers
who are put at risk apparently the the military forces in niger have asked for additional resources because it is a very difficult place to operate from a military standpoint.
And they weren't getting that support.
And there is a lot of speculation that that may have led to the greater loss of life in this instance.
But, yeah, again, you know, this happened on Wednesday of last week.
You didn't hear anything from Trump.
He was too busy sending Mike Pence to go do his paid protest at the Colts game.
You know, Trump, who loved this.
That's true.
The dramatic appearance.
The paid protest, yeah.
Then you have Trump couldn't even be bothered.
He didn't even go to Dover Air Force Base to greet the coffins of these soldiers who came home.
You know, because, you know, instead he wanted to play golf with Lindsey Graham.
So normally Obama had been dragged for this kind of stuff.
Hillary Clinton was dragged for the shit that's going on in Benghazi.
And the lack of outrage on the right, I think, just goes to show that Benghazi has never
about embassy security.
And just similar to the same thing of like how Javanka's private email use, it was never
about that.
It's all just sort of whatever fits the narrative and scores political points.
So, you know, we'll see if Trump says anything about this.
It doesn't seem like he will because it doesn't fit his.
I'm doing a great job.
I'm owning the terrorists.
I'm putting America first.
The troops are great.
It doesn't take any of those boxes.
So, yeah.
All right.
We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back.
going to take a quick break and we'll be right back.
Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was murdered.
There are crooks everywhere you look now.
The situation is desperate.
My name is Manuel Delia.
I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere
a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks
Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption
that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state
and she paid the ultimate price
Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Jackson Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and
iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions like,
how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or can I negotiate a higher salary if this is
my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions.
Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice.
And if we don't know the answer,
we bring in experts who do,
like resume specialist Morgan Saner.
The only difference between the person
who doesn't get the job
and the person who gets the job
is usually who applies.
Yeah, I think a lot about that quote.
What is it?
Like you miss 100% of the shots you never take?
Yeah, rejection is scary,
but it's better than you rejecting yourself.
Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career
without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
In 1982, Atari players had one thing on their minds, Sword Quest.
This wasn't just a new game.
Atari promised $150,000 in prizes to four finalists.
But the prizes disappeared.
And what started as a video game promotion
became one of the most controversial moments in 80s pop culture.
I just don't believe they exist.
My reaction, shock and awe.
That sword was amazing.
It was so beautiful.
I'm Jamie Loftus.
Join me this spring for The Legend of Sword Quest, a podcast about the fall of Atari and
the disappearing Sword Quest prizes.
We'll follow the quest for lost treasure across four decades.
It's almost like a metaphor for the industry and Atari itself in a way.
Listen to The Legend of Sword Quest on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the
target of two assassination attempts, separated by two months.
These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts
on his life in less than three weeks.
President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today.
And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S.
president. One was the protege
of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand
woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent
revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange
and violent summer. This is Rip Current, available now with new episodes every Thursday. And we're back. So we wanted to talk about the tech industry and sort of how went to both campaigns and was like,
hey, we can help you with targeted advertising.
And the Trump campaign took him up on that.
And the Clinton campaign was like, nah, we're good.
And that was a pretty fateful decision.
The Trump campaign still credits Facebook with being like a huge influencing factor.
Facebook does not want that endorsement, I think.
But so as it relates to us as consumers, basically, if you're not paying for something on the Internet, then you are the product.
Like back when it started, AOL and things like that made you pay there was
like a service fee yeah i remember my mom would she would hold that over my head if i was on aol
too long right was like are you paying the aol bill that sounds so crazy yeah and then all of a
sudden these great uh benevolent companies like Facebook and Google came along and were like, hey, use our products for free, guys.
The reason they're able to do that is because they use all the in-depth information they have on you to allow different advertisers and different products to target you.
In a way, it actually eliminates the need for ad agencies in a sense too.
Yeah.
Because they can deal with the company directly rather than asking an ad agency like,
hey, what's the best way to talk to young millennials, blah, blah, blah, who are affluent?
Now they can like, you know, Coca-Cola can just be like, yo, Google,
I'm trying to talk to these, like an 18 year old with a million dollars.
Right.
Like, how do I do that?
be like, yo, Google, I'm trying to talk to these, like an 18 year old with a million dollars, right?
Like, how do I do that? There are companies and like a just vast infrastructure of tech companies that are connecting data from one platform to the other. So you have this giant network of
information sort of spider webbing all over the place that kind of forms your profile on the web.
And it's also a way other types of companies are getting into it.
It's a way telecom companies are basically cashing in.
They have a declining subscriber base, but they're able to cash in using data.
The world's largest phone operators are doing the same thing like AT&T and Verizon.
They're basically tapping into the data that showers from us every time we're mobile surfing
or texting or making phone calls.
So like basically since most people don't have landlines anymore, which is like a huge
part of their business and now just sort of buying their internet service.
They're like, okay, let's turn that into a secondary product.
Like now we can sell all the data that we've gathered from your browser.
Right, exactly.
Yeah, well, cool.
Yeah.
Car companies are also doing it just based on the fact that they know where you are at all times.
Terrible. Yeah. You might notice that every time you install any app on your phone, they ask if they can
use your location.
And obviously, there are some apps where that makes sense, like Yelp, when you're searching
for various things around you.
But there are some that it doesn't make any sense.
And that's because they want access to that sweet, sweet data. around you, but there are some that it doesn't make any sense.
And that's because they, you know, want access to that sweet, sweet data.
And with that, let's go to an ad.
And right.
But it's, it's invisible.
It's invisible marketing that we're, we're not really even that aware of. But like with Facebook likes, people like marketers and Facebook in particular can
automatically and accurately predict a bunch of really personal things about you, like
sexual orientation, ethnicity, religious and political views, personality traits,
intelligence, happiness, your use of addictive substances, whether your parents are still together.
No.
Your age and gender.
Off of just – off of like the pages that you like or like posts that you like or they're just – they build a profile.
It's like, oh, well, this guy likes Jay Dilla, like Hillary Clinton, blah, blah, blah.
And they can be – they're building a profile like that.
But it's not the stuff necessarily that you're voluntarily like giving over, like saying,
okay, this is my profile.
They're not just working with that.
They.
No, but like if you like that Facebook page or whatever.
Right.
Based on those.
And even when you're not on Facebook, if you go to a page that has a Facebook like like
button on it, that information is going back to Facebook.
Facebook knows fucking everything about you.
It's really advanced, too.
I remember when I used to see ads at first and it would be like, oh, I was talking about
something I wanted to buy.
And then that ad would pop up for what I wanted to buy, like on the side.
But now I feel like it's getting just even more specific.
It's like, are you looking for like a 32 year old black man with a beard?
That'll text you back.
Like,
Oh my God.
And you're like,
I get the same ad.
And I am.
And I click on it.
And then what do I get?
Quick and quick,
quick books.
No,
but you got me.
You got me to click.
He's only in books.
Right.
Um,
there was actually a woman who was a sex worker who I think ProPublica did a profile of because these anonymous clients that she had like no online interaction with, no interaction with other than her professional interactions with them started suddenly popping up as like people you may know.
And she was like, what the fuck, man?
Jesus. Yeah. as like people you may know uh and she was like what the fuck man jesus yeah so there's this huge depersonalized system that's emerged and kind of treats bits of us and like our information
our personality is like little commodities and our data is way more valuable than just
you know the few dollars a month.
Right.
Because it's basically the greatest focus group data you could ever have.
It's like you get all of your consumer information from that.
And, yeah, we don't realize, like, that's pretty much that's all in, like, the terms of use of anything when you agree to do it.
It's like it's in there.
Whenever people talk about that, they're like, yeah, I just click the user agreement and
like, whatever, I don't read it.
And it's almost like we're being self-reproachful, like, oh, like we're lazy, but it's not our
fault.
The Amazon Kindle's terms of use took nine hours to read.
Somebody.
Oh, I remember that was like a Reddit video.
Yeah.
Right.
Took nine hours.
So they're specifically designed for you not to be able to read them.
Right.
I know the same thing happens, too, with a lot of people when you can just search someone's name and you'll be on one of those white pages websites where you can find old addresses and things like that.
And people are like, how do they get that?
A lot of those websites are getting them from places like Google and things because yeah, that's, that's another way your information is just, just out there.
Not even like your consuming habits, but just your personal information that they're
even packaging and selling.
So I want to move on to Russia because, uh, we know that Russia has been using Facebook
to advertise.
They've been using all the different platforms that they can to advertise to different people to, you know, promote the copped to that now, although Mark Zuckerberg at first was like, no idea that we would have any effect on people's behavior is ridiculous. Now continue to pay me billions of dollars for advertising. So I want to just give a brief history of how Russia fucks with us. This is nothing new.
This is Russia has been fucking with us and more than I think most people realize for a long time.
An example that I didn't realize was the Kennedy assassination and conspiracy theories about the Kennedy assassination.
I visited Dealey Plaza, which is where the Kennedy
assassination happened with my dad when I was a kid. And, you know, there are all these, you know,
booths and like little museums set up around there. And, you know, they have the conspiracy
theories there. And like, one of the things I saw was a note supposedly from the CIA to Lee Harvey Oswald like a week before the JFK assassination.
I was like, well, that that doesn't look good for what does it say?
It's like kill JFK.
It was just like showing that there was interaction between the magic bully. Right. That note was actually forged by the KGB.
And even even before the first book on the Kennedy assassination came out, even before the Warren report came out, a KGB subsidized publishing house released books such as Oswald colon assassin or fall guy.
Wow.
Yeah. And, you know, there was a guy from the CIA who was working with KGB and he was publishing a
newsletter that included claims that the CIA was behind the assassination. Yeah, they distributed that forged letter between Oswald and the CIA that I then saw 20 years later
and that put the seed in my mind like, huh, yeah.
Right, was this an inside job?
Right, exactly.
And so that's Kremlin fuckery from the 60s.
Right.
And presumably they also built the android we know as Oliver Stone.
That's a deep joke for people.
Not familiar with Oliver Stone or JFK movie.
Right.
Wait, in that movie, are they pushing that myth in that movie?
Well, they just like push every myth in that movie.
Right, right, right.
Like something happened here.
Right, okay, gotcha.
And we can get into what actually happened in the JFK assassination another day.
Because I know you had some hot takes on that.
It was a Secret Service agent accidentally fired the kill shot.
But we'll get to that another time.
The KGB also distributed racist pamphlets against, quote, black mongrels and falsely attributed them to the Jewish Defense League.
They sent letters to black organizations with bogus details about how the Jewish Defense League was like being violent against black people. And then in 1983, there was a thing called Operation Infection, where the KGB planted a story, supposedly, and they printed this in a Indian journal, like a journal in India, but it like started this rumor that the AIDS virus was genetically engineered by the U.S. government.
But that's true, though.
Yeah, we believe that.
Kanye said it.
It's still around now.
Yeah.
And the Kanye song heard him say, do we have a clip of that?
Before you ask me to go get a job today, can I at least get a raise on a minimum wage?
And I know the government administers the AIDS.
So I guess we just pray like the ministers say. Right. Thank you, Kanye.
So that was a 1983 KGB operation that comes down to us.
So Kanye got got by the KGB, too.
We all did.
Yeah.
I mean, we've all heard that.
And whether you heard it and thought it was absurd, you heard it.
Right.
And it's in your mind.
heard it and thought it was absurd, you heard it and it's in your mind. Well, it's interesting too about the thing with – during the civil rights movement too because the KGB,
that's another rumor is that they tried to delegitimize MLK by trying to get people to say that he was taking government money to do this and delegitimize him.
Right.
But that's interesting because he was attacked by the FBI and the KGB.
So that's a twofer for MLK.
I know.
But that's interesting because he was attacked by the FBI and the KGB.
So that's a twofer for him. I know.
That's relevant history to then bring you up to the present day where so Putin, former KGB agent, is trying to influence the American people and influence the American election. And he has access to this giant universe of information that we give these companies access to. And yeah, I don't know. It's not even like it's not the least bit surprising to me that he was able to kind of influence things and get and get things done. Yeah, because, I mean, again, these algorithms have become so sophisticated
that you can just plug and play all kinds of things
and just instantly disseminate that information to a specific group
and knowing that you're getting the most effective message to the audience
that is the most receptive to it.
Right.
Like even picking up on individual words.
Like now people use the congratulations to try to boost their posts because if you write congratulations in the comments under a Facebook post, it automatically boosts it for longer than the other posts, because Facebook assumes it's like a announcement that people want to see.
So if you write. Yeah. If you write, get on Facebook and write congratulations in a comment and it'll turn orange and then it'll pose so it's like hey i'm doing uh my 90s dj set
at the bar later congratulations and you're like man i don't want to see this shit right dj thank
you yeah if you do that and people are using that to try to disseminate information about uh
registering for the affordable care act since the government slashed so much of the funding for uh
advertisements for that oh that activists to help people get to enroll
we're having to gain facebook too by using congratulations hack congratulations you're
fucked how to get unfucked um but yeah so i mean a lot of the times this is being used by advertising
uh there's a a piece in the new york times today about how how Toyota just released like four different types of ads,
like racially targeted ads for the Toyota.
I forget which car it is.
The Camry.
The Camry.
The one of the black and Asian ones both spoke to me.
The Asian one portrayed a very bizarre father daughter relationship in which I, he showed affection by looking at her in the rearview mirror.
Right.
Okay.
And the marketing team behind it, I think, was quoted in the piece being like, yes, we know that Asian fathers do not show affection.
So we were trying to, like, break down some doors.
some doors but anyways it's like these are things that advertisers have been working on and you know using for years and are going to continue to use and brag about using and the connecting of that
enormous apparatus and like crazy amount of value uh that that brings to advertisers connecting that to government
influences is pretty is going to be pretty powerful and it could be pretty terrifying
well yeah it's i mean it's something that's used to market like you know marketing is all about
catching people at the right time at the right place in the right mental state to make them you
know buy your thing that can be used for such dark, evil shit.
And even like on YouTube, I know like with ads too, they can like almost target emotions
as well.
Right.
So it's like, Oh, like you want to, you want to put your YouTube video up when someone's
feeling good or happy or excited or like thrilled about a video.
Like these are, these are a group of videos that work for that.
Someone who is like maybe, uh, maybe not feeling good about the way they look or maybe feeling sad they even have ways to begin targeting emotions too in front of the
videos or after the videos you're watching so and these are just age-old tactics um right that have
i have a marketing degree oh okay cool i have a marketing degree guys um little known fact no but
that's always been something that we would study in school is basically like if you are up at a certain hour, like if late night television is targeted
to people who seem to be they drink heavier, they tend to be depressed. They tend to also
be overweight. So you'll see like those commercials target those specific aspects of that personality.
So all it is is now those at those same marketing strategies are bleeding over into social media.
The problem is, is that social media has bled so deeply into our personal lives that it's not like television where we turn it on and off.
It's like everywhere, every minute. So that just makes it that much more invasive.
Yeah. It's increasingly important to think about your attention as a finite resource.
Right. hostile foreign powers when Facebook acts like it's crazy that anybody would think that they've had an influence on the election, like realize how much of your attention is being spent on
Facebook. Right. Is being like and for free. Right. Right. At least that stores when they
give you those little value cards, like you get like an incentive, like a discount when you swipe
it and they get information about your purchases. But Facebook no and well and it just shows just to show you
how entrenched people like how facebook is so important to people's lives people were calling
9-1-1 when facebook went down the other day like right i will i will say that facebook does also
like there's a reason people uh you know, are all flocking to Facebook.
It also provides a service to people.
Absolutely.
No, absolutely.
But I think that's where that fine line is, where like it allows us to connect to each other.
And it is a way to communicate outside of the traditional ways of using phones and things like that.
But, yeah, it's a very sharp double edged sword.
And I think we have to head to a break.
Obviously, there are a bunch of big questions like, how do you police this big of a system?
You know, should the government get involved? Will they end up breaking up these giant companies that like they did the monopolies in the early 20th century?
Those are all interesting questions that we'll dive into at a later date.
But for right now, let's hear a couple words from our sponsors.
Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was murdered. There are crooks everywhere
you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks
Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the
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Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente.
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When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions.
Like, how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed?
Or, can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us
as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in
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In 1982, Atari players had one thing on their minds,
Sword Quest.
This wasn't just a new game.
Atari promised 150 grand in prizes to four finalists,
but the prizes disappeared.
And what started as a video game promotion
became one of the most controversial moments
in 80s pop culture.
I just don't believe they exist.
I mean, my reaction, shock and awe.
That sword was amazing.
It was so beautiful.
I'm Jamie Loftus.
Join me this spring for The Legend of Sword Quest,
a podcast about the fall of Atari and the disappearing Sword Quest prizes.
We'll follow the quest for lost treasure across four decades.
It's almost like a metaphor for the industry and Atari itself in a way.
Listen to The Legend of Sword Quest on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts, separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago
when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks.
President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today.
And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president.
One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson.
I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman.
The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI
in a violent revolutionary underground.
Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore.
The story of one strange and violent summer.
This is Rip Current.
Available now with new episodes every Thursday.
Listen on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
And we're back.
All right, you guys. empathy required for you to claim that you
only feel sorry for sexual abuse
victims because you have a daughter
and
two of the people
who have used this gambit
are writing
partners and scared
to admit it soulmates
Matt Damon and Ben Affleck
have both used it.
Matt Damon's was really weird, actually.
He said, look, even before I was famous, I didn't abide this kind of behavior, which is so strange.
So is he saying that most not famous people are fine with sexual assault and but he wasn't?
I think he's saying that before it was so easy to get away with sexual assault.
He wasn't even attempting it back in the days when he was a normie, let alone when now he's famous and he could probably just silence people.
Even before I was a star, I didn't like rape.
But now as a father of four daughters, this is the kind of sexual predation that keeps me up at night.
So he's saying that before he was famous.
He wasn't raping nobody.
That he didn't.
So to say that once you become famous.
Right.
Then you got to get with the game and be like, hey, it's okay.
It's very confusing.
It raises more questions.
Even before us.
Anyways, Lacey, you pointed out that Matt Damon has kind of been problematic for a while.
Oh, for sure.
And that's why I wasn't surprised when these comments came out.
And as I'm sure many people who are woke to Matt Damon being dead because he's not sleep, he's dead.
He made some very problematic comments when he was doing Project Greenlight with HBO, where he was literally shutting down a black woman while she was trying to talk to and to basically make the statement that diversity only matters in front of the camera.
that a person of color should be directing a movie where a woman of color would have been a prostitute and beat up by a white man as a pimp.
Just trying to make sure that the narrative didn't get problematic.
He was saying that it did not matter who the director was insinuating the director should be white because that doesn't matter.
It should be based off merit.
Yeah.
Or like, which is another problematic thing uh racists like to throw in there like
when they talk about affirmative action and things like that or even like casting women's like well
we would cast women but they're not good men happen to be funnier so you know better right
yeah so it's just he's not he like gets real exasperated and shit yeah that whole scene is
super cringy uh you should youtube that anybody just do mad damon green light project green light
diversity because it all of a sudden,
all the other,
like,
I guess what are they technically the judges of the show?
Who are also the other producers?
They all like lock arms and are like,
Whoa,
no,
no,
no,
no,
no,
no,
Hey,
Hey,
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Hey,
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Hey,
Hey,
Hey,
Hey,
Hey,
Hey,
Hey,
Hey,
Hey,
Hey,
Hey,
Hey,
Hey,
Hey,
Hey,
Hey,
Hey,
Hey,
Hey,
Hey,
Hey,
Hey,
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Hey,
Hey,
Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey part. We can get the job. Lacey, you were you were pointing out earlier that Insecure, like because it's actually made by black people and with black people in front of the camera, that like it created all all these like new ideas that like hadn't been made before.
Because.
Yeah, absolutely. ideas that like hadn't been made before because yeah absolutely i mean in terms of filmmaking too
i think people forget that uh diversity and racial inclusion spans so deep um to the point where
kodak for a very long period of time uh up until probably recent years did not have stock um light
photo like light swatches for people of color so basically like they're um uh when you're
filming things there'll be like swatches like gobos or things that go over the camera that
change the lighting tint the lighting and they'll have those with an example of like a white person
of every shade so that you could see what that white person would look like but there were no
black people so the mic actually did an article about how the lighting on Insecure is revolutionary because before that, most programming wasn't catering to dark skin when they were lighting it at all.
So that black people never kind of look right in anything because they adjust to white people.
What's funny is my dad, who is a photographer, he would always say like whenever – so he shot a lot of like uh like black artists comedians actors for
for magazines things like that and he was always critical when he would see photography of black
people because there were a lot many white photographers just did not know how to light
for a black subject in front of the camera that's crazy and that's interesting to know that that
might that's almost maybe innately built out of kodak not even like creating these sort of
products to help people understand like,
okay, what do you do in the subject in front of your camera has a skin tone that would
absorb more light than it would reflect light and how you actually adjust for this.
So I do want to just correct myself before we move too far.
Shirley cards is what Kodak's the frame that I was talking about, what they reference to
use for lighting.
They're called Shirley cards because someone who's into film will know that
and drag me.
Shirley, you can't be cards.
Nice.
Good airplane reference. Thank you.
And I think that's all the time we have, you guys.
Leave them on a laugh. Laci, thank you
so much for joining us. This was so fun.
Where can people find you
and follow you oh you can
follow me at diva lacy on instagram it's lacy with an i um just an i no e or y and then you can also
see me on herald night if you're in la i'm at the ucb theater every week what's your herald group
uh leroy uh also with eckermont bless you yeah yes our first guest and our last guest of this season one.
This is the finale of season one.
We'll be back with season two on Monday.
We only take off a weekend between seasons.
So season two coming Monday.
Miles, where can people find you?
You can find me at Big Five Sporting Goods.
I'm taking back a faulty sleeping bag.
Trying to get my money back.
And you can follow
me at Jack underscore O'Brien
on Twitter. You can follow
The Daily Zeitgeist at
DailyZeitgeist on Twitter at
TheDailyZeitgeist on Instagram.
We are
working on bringing those
footnotes to you folks
we will
get those going hopefully next week
in season 2
coming at you
and that'll do it for week 1
of the Daily Zeitgeist
over and out
what's your sign off line Miles?
I got a new one, Latrix
nice Blind Miles? I got a new one. Latrix. Nice. Thank you. she exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state.
Listen to Crooks everywhere
on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti.
And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadsden.
We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline
from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts.
There's a lot to figure out
when you're just starting your career.
That's where we come in.
Think of us as your work besties
you can turn to for advice.
And if we don't know the answer,
we bring in people who do,
like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour.
If you start thinking about negotiations
as just a conversation,
then I think it sort of eases us a little bit.
Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your
podcasts. What happens when a professional football player's career ends and the applause
fades and the screaming fans move on? I am going to share my journey of how I went from
Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite. For some former NFL players, a new faith provides answers.
You mix homesteading with guns and church.
Voila! You got straight away.
They try to save everybody.
Listen to Spiraled on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
In California during the summer of 1975, within the span of 17 days and less than 90 miles,
two women did something no other woman had done before,
try to assassinate the president of the United States.
One was the protege of Charles Manson.
26-year-old Lynette Fromm, nicknamed Squeaky.
The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI.
Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore.
The story of one strange and violent
summer this season on the new podcast Rip Current. Hear episodes of Rip Current early and completely
ad-free and receive exclusive bonus content by subscribing to iHeart True Crime Plus only on
Apple Podcasts.