Original subtitles

Bye.

Thank you so much for joining us. It has been a busy week. The Supreme Court

struck down Trump's tariffs, and he met with his Board of Peace shortly before

going back to pushing the US toward war with Iran.

But we're actually going to start in the UK this week, where Thursday brought

some massive news.

This morning, a stunning royal arrest.

Former Prince Andrew taken into custody from his home in the English

countryside. It follows growing revelations about the alleged

between the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and Andrew.

It's true, they arrested former Prince Andrew, and I don't know why they're

still going with alleged connections to Epstein there, while also running a

photo that makes them look like the two closest friends I've ever seen. It looks

like they're brainstorming a new podcast.

It looks like Andrew's soft -launching, hey, would it be crazy if we moved in

together? I'm just saying, maybe drop the alleged part when you're dealing

two guys that look so close they could finish each other's prison sentences.

And if you think you will... What was the new revelation that did it? Was it

grotesque new photo of Andrew on all fours over a young woman? Incredibly,

It was apparently this.

The arrest reportedly linked to emails released by the US Department of Justice

as part of the Epstein files that show Andrew forwarding emails to Epstein

he was trade envoy.

The emails, some dated in 2010, well after Epstein had already been convicted

soliciting sex from a minor, show Andrew forwarding British government files

from his trips to places like Hong Kong and Vietnam.

Yeah, they got him on forwarding documents, which is a little

though. To be honest, when it comes to bringing down monsters, I don't really

care if it's for a boring computer crime. The same way I'm not that mad if

finally ends a toddler throwing a tantrum is a cardboard box. The method

matter. What's important is you have been stopped.

Now, Andrew has repeatedly denied all wrongdoing and has been released,

that does not mean he's been found not guilty.

All we really have to go on right now is this...

Fantastic picture of him leaving custody. And you can draw your own

there. Reasonable people can disagree on whether this makes him look guilty or

dead. And I've got to say, even him being taken into custody this week must

been gratifying for some, including anyone who's ever had to work for him.

Because to hear at least one former officer who was assigned to guard

wasn't the greatest to be around.

Did Prince Andrew have a nickname at that time?

Well, his official code, so if he was to come into the palace, he would call

someone Purple41.

But he did have a nickname, but it's a bit rude for me to tell you, and I'll

tell you, but you're not going to be able to air it. It was just called... Do

you want me to tell you?

Yeah.

It was called The Cunt.

Yeah.

Yeah.

According to that guy.

That was Andrew's unofficial nickname.

And it's a little weird he was so wary of saying that word on TV, given he was

appearing on Australia's 60 Minutes.

And Australians say cunt all the time. I'm pretty sure Bluey said it at least

three times.

But it's not... Just codename cunts here facing consequences. Take Peter

Mandelson, the UK's former ambassador to DC.

He's also under police investigation for forwarding government emails to

Epstein, something he's denied. And there are also questions about how close

they were, especially given the sheer number of photos of them together,

including this recently released one of him in his underwear, seemingly in

Epstein's apartment.

And the very fact Prime Minister Keir Starmer appointed Mandelson ambassador

the first place is now a major scandal.

His Chief of Staff and Communications Director... have resigned, and it may

stop there.

The fallout is now directly threatening the Prime Minister.

Keir Starmer has admitted to Parliament he knew of Mandelson's past association

with Epstein, but that he had not been told the truth about the extent of the

relationship. The admission has sparked a furious backlash, including from

members of Starmer's own party, who are openly questioning his judgment and his

leadership. Right, because that shows terrible judgment.

A crucial part of leadership is who you pick to be on your team. If the Raiders

decided at this year's NFL draft to use their number one pick to select Roman

Polanski...

Everyone involved in that decision should probably be fired. But here in

there's been a notable lack of consequences for several high -profile

who've appeared in the files. Most notably, this guy is still president.

also, his Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Epstein's former next -door

neighbour, by the way, has come under scrutiny because he previously said he

Epstein only once in 2005 and was so revolted he declared, I will never be in

the room with that disgusting person ever again.

But new documents reveal not only were they in touch after that, Lutnick

actually visited Epstein's Island, something he tried to justify like this.

I did have lunch with him as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation.

My wife was with me, as were my four children and nannies. We were on family

vacation. We were not apart.

To suggest there was anything untoward about that in 2012, I don't recall why

did it, but...

Okay, to be clear, there was a lot untoward about meeting Epstein in 2012.

He'd left jail three years earlier as a sex offender, and it was widely known

what kind of guy he was at that time. And it's not a great look, but it seems

the end of Lutnick's sentence, I will never be in a room with that disgusting

person again, was apparently, unless that is, I can bring my kids.

But Lutnick is still in his job. And, by the way, is Peter Atiyah, who CBS News

had only just hired as part of their new roster of contributors when the files

were released. And the details about him in there are great.

The celebrity longevity influencer appears in the files more than 1 ,700

In 2015, Atiyah wrote, The biggest problem with becoming friends with you,

life you lead is so outrageous, and yet I cannot tell a soul.

Oh! And that is not close to the worst of it, because Atiyah also apparently

wrote to Epstein's assistant saying, I go into J .E. withdrawal when I don't

him, and wrote to Epstein directly saying that, and I quote, pussy is

-carb, still waiting results on gluten content, though.

Now, Atiyah's apologised for those emails and has stepped down as Chief

Officer of the protein bar company, David, following these revelations. But

incredibly, as of taping, CBS News still seems to be keeping him on as a

contributor. And it is wild that CBS News somehow has lower standards than a

protein bar company.

That markets their products like this, and also like this. And I'm not sure who

at that company thought their bars needed to be 80s horny, but I hope

gone too.

And look, I'm not saying Atiyah or Lutnik have committed crimes, but it is

clear... Just how comfortable far too many people were looking past Epstein's

heinous actions. And given the lack of accountability in all this, there's at

least some satisfaction in knowing just how nervous some powerful men must be

feeling right now. A nervousness that's kind of hard to put into words. But

luckily, I think this picture sums it up pretty well.

And now, this.

And now, people on TV celebrate National Drink Wine Day.

Today is National Drink Wine Day.

It is recommended, friends, to drink in moderation.

So one glass that's this big.

It's Ash Wednesday.

I'm Catholic.

They serve wine at Mass.

Because of Lent, make sure you eat fish today. So E .P. Micah hooked me up. I

don't really know if this is a hookup, guys, but he hooked me up with some fish

sticks and some generic wine. It is Ash Wednesday.

I think this is interesting.

That it coincides with National Drink Wine Day. Kind of is, isn't it?

Is it?

Yeah. This is nice rosé for the day. How is it?

It's very good. It's good.

National Wine Day. Oh, it is good. It tastes different at 6 .45am.

Moving on. Our main story tonight concerns Twitter, or as it's been called

Elon Musk purchased it a few years ago, Twitter.

It's a site... With exactly one good account left, Gerald Stratford, a

British man who delights followers with his giant vegetables.

I've just cut this big cabbage.

It's a PB for me. I haven't got any scales big enough to weigh it, but I'm

worried about that. It's a beautiful specimen.

Yeah, it is, Gerald.

And I, for one, am glad that you cut that cabbage. To be honest, I haven't

this jazzed to see a cabbage broken in half since my wedding night.

Twitter has clearly changed significantly in recent years. And you

the moment that started, because it's today in October 2022, when Elon tweeted

video of himself carrying a sink into Twitter headquarters, writing, let that

sink in. A joke so funny, I'm still laughing right now.

And he quickly made it clear that the company was going to be different. He

changed Twitter's name to X, announced an extremely hardcore cultural reset,

by his count said he'd cut about 80 %...

of Twitter's staff. And to hear Elon tell it, he did it to protect free

and correct for what many conservatives considered a left -wing bias. In fact,

as far as he was concerned, nothing less than the fate of the world was at

stake. The reason for acquiring Twitter is because it was causing

destruction at a civilizational level. You know, like Wormtongue from Lord of

the Rings, where he would just sort of whisper these...

you know, terrible things to the king, so the king would believe these things

that weren't true.

And they were pushing a nihilistic, anti -civilizational mind virus to the

world. Okay.

For the record, Twitter's not a good analogue for Wormtongue at all, and I'm

guessing I don't need to explain why, given the Venn diagram between viewers

this show and people familiar with second -tier Lord of the Rings

I'm pretty sure, a single circle as round, in fact, as the outermost wall of

Minas Tirith.

For what Elon's embrace of so -called free speech has actually resulted in is

much darker. One study found an approximately 50 % increase in posts

hate speech.

And recently, you may have heard about the platform's struggles with Grok's

image editing tool, which has allowed users to create digitally altered

sexualized photos of real people, including minors. And look, no one is

saying... Twitter was perfect before Elon arrived. It helped platform a lot

ugliness, including, but not limited to, our first shitpost of president.

But it is genuinely worse now. And you might think, you... already know how bad

it is, or that it doesn't matter to you because you're no longer on it. But I

promise, it's actually worse than you think, for reasons you may not know, and

in ways that will unfortunately impact all of us. So given that, tonight, let's

talk about Twitter. Let's start with some of the most visible changes Elon's

made. One of his first involved the site's verification system, which used

assign a blue checkmark to anyone well -known enough that they might need an

official sign that they were who they said they were. Elon replaced that with

system where anyone can get a blue check. They simply became a premium user

paid $8 a month. And that led to instant, albeit very funny, chaos.

All of a sudden, scrollers saw LeBron James asking for a trade. Oil company

British Petroleum admitting it killed the planet. And drug manufacturer Eli

Lilly offering insulin for free.

It's true. Fake accounts sprung up all over the place. Fake George Bush said he

missed killing Iraqis.

to which fake Tony Blair said, same PBH.

Fake OJ Simpson said, not gonna lie, I did that shit.

And a fake American Girl doll account said, Felicity owns slaves, continuing,

I'm not even lying, look it up.

Now, Elon eventually added new grey and gold check marks to help verify some

official accounts, and while I'm not sure exactly which fake tweets made him

that, if I had to guess, it'd be this one from a fake Tesla account that said,

our cars do not respect school zone speed limits.

fuck them kids so already the site was much less reliable because it was harder

to tell who was trustworthy but on top of that Elon took an axe to the site's

ability to deal with harmful content by, among other things, slashing its global

trust and safety staff, including reducing its full -time content

over 50%. He also started restoring a lot of accounts that had been banned for

violating the platform's policies on things like abusive behaviour and

violence. He memorably brought back this guy, as well as Alex Jones, Andrew

Tate, Nick Fuentes, and UK anti -immigrant crusader Tommy Robertson,

believe is known as a nightmare anything rotation.

And that was just the beginning.

Twitter accounts belonging to far -right activists and QAnon theorists have been

reinstated, according to data reviewed by NBC News.

Hundreds of formerly banned users now back on the platform after a

tweet that amnesty begins next week.

Yeah, he basically reinstated a bunch of accounts, including white supremacy,

and announced it on Thanksgiving.

which, when you think about it, is actually pretty thematically appropriate

the holiday.

And when you take all of that together, it is no wonder the site became a

fertile breeding ground for hatred and misinformation, and much less reliable

when it came to tracking breaking news.

One of the first clear signs of that came in the wake of the October 7th

in Israel. Previously, at a moment like that, people might look to Twitter for

information from journalists and other credible people on the scene.

But a ton of misinformation circulated there, often from accounts boasting

misleading blue checks.

This video of a grieving boy supposedly from Gaza went viral, even though it was

from at least nine years earlier and was taken in Syria.

And this clip supposedly of Israeli rockets exploding was actually from a

military simulation video game. The account that posted that, by the way,

conveniently titled Israel Mossad, had gone from fewer than 1 ,000 followers

when it first acquired a blue check in September 2023 to more than 230 ,000.

And that wasn't the only big change, because Twitter also started paying so

-called creators on the site. Currently, if you're a premium user, meaning you

pay for a blue check, you can get paid for your post, and your revenue is

dependent on how many other premium users reply to, repost, and like your

content. And that has served some users pretty well, like this guy who posted

his freedom uncut online and was on Twitter a lot.

He says he spends up to 16 hours a day on X.

sharing AI -generated pictures like these and streaming.

While some of these posts are obviously satirical, others are less fantastical.

It's the more provocative content that gets views, he tells me. It's kind of

interesting because the balance between free speech and

saying stuff that you know is either untrue or you just say it in a very

way to egg people on.

is an interesting era that we're in. I know people that are making the pay

periods every two weeks, and I know people that are in the thousand plus

Look, it is not the most important thing there, but it is genuinely incredible

to me that people can make money posting matrix memes of Trump that read, I can

dodge bullets, not least because that's something. And not to be a fact bitch

here, Trump didn't entirely do. If we're just...

Going to be sticklers about it. And look, over $1 ,000 every two

weeks is clearly a good payday just for posting. Usually to make that kind of

money online, you need to be running a crypto scam or selling feet pics. And

even that is only realistic for those of us who happen to be born with

irresistible feet. I will show you, but honey, I don't do that for free.

And some accounts...

particularly on the far right have even made more like the anonymous end

wokeness which once tweeted wow elon musk wasn't kidding content monetization

real with a screenshot showing earnings of over ten thousand dollars now i

should say most accounts don't make that much but even relatively small amounts

can be an incentive if say you live in another country where the cost of living

is lower. And that may help explain the somewhat awkward revelations that came

last year when Twitter suddenly allowed people to see accounts' location

information.

The ex -account MAGA Nation, with nearly 400 ,000 followers, boasts itself as

standing strong with President Trump and America first, with post after post

backing Trump.

But one click shows it's based in Eastern Europe. Even President Trump

reposting several accounts that are not from the United States on his truth

social platform.

Like this account called Commentary Donald Trump, posting about whether

-born citizens should be barred from running for office.

the account itself based in Africa.

Yeah, and that is not all. An account called UltraMagaTrump2028, claiming to

based in D .C., was also listed as being in Africa. The account MagaNadeen was

based in Morocco, and the user AtAmerican was based in Pakistan.

Which is pretty surprising. Finding out an account called AtAmerican is based

outside the U .S. is kind of like finding out that the person who runs

David Attenborough. I mean, sure, it's...

Not illegal, and I guess maybe the passion could be real, but it certainly

changes how I think about things.

The point is, there is an ecosystem of people, both here and abroad, who've

discovered you can make money off of pissed Americans staring at their

And to be clear, none of the changes I've mentioned so far involved secret

tweaks to Twitter's algorithm.

They just involved changing who could post and what their incentives were.

As for what happened behind the scenes... That is harder to say, though

who've run experiments on the site have made some troubling discoveries.

Last year, Sky News created a number of accounts emulating British Twitter

users. Three were left -wing users, three were right -wing, and three were

neutral, designed to show no interest in politics.

And when they tracked the content each was pushed by Twitter's algorithm, their

findings were striking.

The result was that every account, no matter their political orientation, was

fed a glut of right -wing content. Remember our left -wing users.

This shows what they saw on the platform, and more than 40 % came from

-wing accounts.

Compare that to our right -wing users, and look, they saw much less left -wing

content and a lot of right -wing content.

And then the neutral users, who we designed not to show any interest in

politics. They saw twice as much right -wing content in the pink here than they

did left -wing in yellow.

And that clearly suggests that something is up.

even if we don't know the exact algorithm changes that were made. It's

a redditor found that statistically, James Harden's poor performance during

games correlates with them happening in cities with highly rated strip clubs.

Now, can we make concrete statements about causality there? Of course we

but the data is making some loud suggestions.

Now, I have to say, X has announced a new update to Twitter's algorithm, which

they've dubbed as purely AI -led, although...

Given Elon has a history of trying to make his AI chatbot Grok less woke,

leading to it at one point calling itself Mecha -Hitler, I'm not sure how

reassuring that is.

Also, Elon's definitely shown a willingness to tweak Twitter's algorithm

drive certain kinds of content, and sometimes for truly embarrassing

There's a notorious incident involving him going to the Super Bowl in 2023 and

having a problem with one of his tweets, and I'll let this reporter fill you in.

He tweets out...

basically as support for the Philadelphia Eagles.

I think his tweet was something like, go Eagles, with a few American flags on

it.

Biden, around the same time, posts a somewhat similar tweet.

Fly, Eagles, fly. And it's a video of his wife, Jill Biden, who's walking with

an Eagles jersey on.

The game goes on. Elon Musk checks his phone.

It looks like Joe Biden, who he's called a damp sock puppet in human form, is

doing much better than he is in terms of engagement on this very similar tweet.

At 2 .36 a .m., she says an urgent message went out and roughly 80

were pulled into work.

And they're tasked with fixing the issues with the algorithm.

That's true.

Elon's tweets got less engagement than Biden's did, so 80 engineers were called

in at 2 in the morning and told, this is high urgency.

And of course his tweet flopped. It was terrible. First, don't use American

flags when eagle emojis exist. But also, eagles?

Why call them by their government name? Just post, go birds, eagle emojis, Jalen

Hurts can give me a tush -push any day, and you'd have cracked a million likes

instantly. Now...

Reporters later learned that after Musk threatened to fire his remaining

engineers, they built a system designed to ensure that he, and he alone,

benefited from previously unheard of promotion of his tweets to the entire

base. Which seems to be happening.

As basically, whatever Elon's tweeting about, people will see it in their feet.

When Fortune conducted an experiment to gauge how prevalent Musk was on Twitter,

they set up a dozen different test accounts.

And in approximately 90 % of the sessions they conducted, a post from

appeared at least once in the timeline, usually much more often. And even

clicking not interested in Elon Musk didn't change things. In fact, after one

test account clicked exactly that, posts from him more than doubled.

At this point, it seems like there's only one option if you never want to

anything from Elon Musk, and that's to be his coolest child.

And Twitter summing the scale toward Elon's interest is bad for multiple

reasons, not limited to his god -awful jokes, his history of invoking extreme

ideas like the anti -Semitic Great Replacement Theory, and the fact he was

apparently a driver of US election misinformation in 2024.

But perhaps the biggest cause for concern...

is the fact that our current government is troublingly dependent on Elon's

platform. The Trump administration is painfully online, and particularly on

Twitter. J .D. Barnes has said that he's a grok guy.

Cash Patel repeatedly fumbled FBI investigations by prematurely announcing

suspects on Twitter. And this photo of the makeshift situation room during the

.S. military operation in Venezuela showed a Twitter feed with Venezuela in

search bar.

And I'm not sure anything can inspire less confidence than that, other than

Google results for who is Venezuela.

And at best, the consequences of doing this are that the government just ends

doing dumb stuff.

Like when someone on Twitter seemed to convince Elon that the gold inside Fort

Knox might be missing.

The Washington Post traced it back to this tweet, suggesting he take a look to

make sure... It was still there. Musk replied, surely it's reviewed every

To which the account responded, it should be, it isn't. Just two days

Musk tweeted, it would be cool to do a live video walkthrough of Fort Knox. And

not long after that, this came out of the mouth of the President of the United

States. We're actually going to Fort Knox to see if the gold is there.

Because maybe somebody stole the gold.

Tons of gold.

Okay.

Well, let us know, I guess.

Honestly, I know it's probably not a great use of taxpayer money, but I think

I'd be okay if he spent the rest of his presidency trying to solve low -stakes

mysteries he found on Twitter.

Visiting Fort Knox because someone said the gold might be missing, or pouring

around in the White House garden with a magnifying glass because Kourtney

Kardashian once tweeted, do ants have dicks?

It wouldn't be the worst use of his time.

Anything that keeps him busy, really.

But wild gold chases are the best -case scenario here, because we've talked

before about how misinformation on Twitter led to actual spending cuts

Elon's time at Doge. But it goes well beyond that.

A nominee for a senior administration post recently told The New Yorker, if we

have something that's popular in right -wing Twitter, the White House is acting

on it 90 -plus percent of the time.

And Trump appointees like Harmeet Dhillon, the Assistant Attorney General

Civil Rights, will sometimes openly brag about taking work cues from social

media. I have a big social media following from before I joined the DOJ

about 1 .5 million plus followers online. It is a way to find information.

Today, I don't actually watch television very much. I'm not, you know, I don't

have the TV on in the background because TV is like 12 to 24 hours behind what's

really happening.

And when the modern day journalist heroes who are the Nick Shirley's and,

know, the Matt Taimi's and some of these others who, you know, right or left,

they're the ones who are getting the. leads and sharing the stories in real

those are the ones i pay attention to and where we get our attention on

something our libs of tiktok is also a great source for some of our issues

involving schools or employment we do open up investigations based on internet

leads and i i am proud of that okay first bragging about your twitter

is just embarrassing and again Even worse would you learn that last

Dylan tweeted, I've been stuck at pretty much the same level of followers on

this account since I started my government job.

What am I, chopped liver over here?

What kind of content do my folks want to see more of to like and share?

To which I'd respond, I guess I'd love to see a resignation letter if you're

taking requests.

But also, it's a little hard.

To hear her complain about a lack of followers, given she routinely pumps out

duds like this recent one, on the road, timeline cleanse knitting, after a day

of hard work, cash me a hat for a man.

And this one, also about a hat, but in which she throws in the arse slur for

good measure. And what the fuck is that?

That is a hard unfollow for me, for the Assistant Attorney General for Civil

Rights. But there are obvious issues.

with the government taking cues from accounts that Dylan Justice described.

Because some are posting deeply irresponsible rage bait. Take a guy that

just mentioned there, Nick Shirley.

He's the 23 -year -old right -wing influencer behind a viral investigation

Minnesota daycares posted in December.

They were actually playing a clip of it during her interview there. Shirley

posted it on YouTube first, but it quickly went viral on Twitter, where

far garnered over 140 million views. It's worth knowing just how flimsy it

For context, allegations of social services fraud in Minnesota, some of it

Somali Americans, have been the subject of federal investigations and mainstream

media coverage for years now. Dozens of people have already been convicted as a

result, with some investigations still ongoing.

Still! Nick Shirley decided to do some investigating of his own by showing up

daycares, demanding to see proof kids went there, and in some instances,

if he could enrol his non -existent child.

When he wasn't able to do that, he concluded the businesses were front. It

truly ridiculous stunt, and he sort of acknowledged when pressed on it by an

actual reporter.

But surely you don't think a daycare should just be unlocked.

You shouldn't be able to just walk into a daycare. It should be a reception.

No. Every daycare is locked.

And so, okay, you bring up a fair point. But why can't they actually give me

information how to enroll a child?

Okay, first, I love the slight pause there after Shirley was told daycares

not typically open to strangers with cameras. Just the slow realization that

locked door is one of the basic things.

Every daycare should have, along with crayons, interlocking foam tiles, tiny

tables and chairs, and so many germs, every part of the insides will be coated

with a plem for the next two years straight.

That is what daycares are.

But also, if you really want the latest right -wing rallying cry to be, daycare

should have a guest reception for random men without children who just want to

poke around and film some shit.

I'd love to see how that turns out for you. Now, you won't be surprised to

that state investigators conducted compliance checks after Shirley's video

viral and found that the day care services were operating as expected and

kids were present at all sites except for one, and that is only because it

wasn't yet open for families for the day when inspectors arrived.

But the thing is, it was already too late.

Because Elon absolutely loved that dumb video. He tweeted, retweeted, and

engaged with a truly absurd number of posts about it or the claims that it

in the days after the video went online. And unsurprisingly, the Trump

administration took notice.

The day after it was posted, J .D. Barnes tweeted about it, saying it was

useful journalism than any of the winners of the 2024 Pulitzer Prizes,

given one of them focused on tactics authoritarian regimes used to repress

dissent in the digital age, feels a bit on the nose.

Two days after that, Kristi Noem posted a clip of ICE agents apparently

conducting a massive investigation into childcare fraud in Minneapolis.

And the next day, Trump's then Deputy Secretary at HHS posted on Twitter,

tagging Nick Shirley and including this video that was then retweeted by HHS.

Intrepid journalists have made shocking and credible allegations of extensive

fraud in Minnesota's childcare programs.

We believe the state of Minnesota has allowed scammers and fake daycares to

siphon millions of taxpayer dollars over the past decade.

Wow, look, I know it is distracting because that man is hot as shit.

But if you can listen to his words through the smoke show going on there,

they're actually very worrying.

In that post, they announced they've frozen funding to Minnesota.

and then quickly tried expanding that to encompass five Democratic -run states.

And within two weeks, the Trump administration sent thousands of federal

to Minnesota to crack down on illegal immigration.

I don't think it's a stretch to say that a lot of the shit you saw in Minnesota

was caused, at least in part, by this fucking tweet.

The point here is Twitter has become a sewer of misinformation with the power

bring about troubling real -world impacts. To be clear...

This is now a problem that goes far beyond this administration or this

Because you see just how dangerous what Elon's built can be. We actually have to

look at England. In 2024, in a town called Southport, three young girls were

killed in a knife attack. It was horrific.

In the immediate aftermath, there was almost no public information available

about the attacker. But nevertheless, a Twitter account called Europe Invasion,

known to publish anti -immigrant and Islamophobic content, baselessly

the suspect was a Muslim immigrant. By the time the killer was identified as a

non -Muslim, British citizen, born to parents from Rwanda, it was already too

late, as mobs were forming.

And after a vigil for the victims, violence broke out near a local mosque,

people throwing bricks, bottles and other missiles at it. And the imam there

still seemed stunned by the speed with which it all accelerated.

We start getting...

messages from friends and neighbors and saying there is a lot of people accusing

the attacker of being a Muslim.

And then it's moving from there. They said he is coming to this mosque.

And then it moved from there very quickly. We're talking about within half

hour. It became that we coerced him into doing what he did.

Did you ever expect that it would end up?

that hatred would end up outside your mosque. Never.

That is terrible. And given the killer wasn't a member of that mosque, or

Muslim, of course you wouldn't expect a hate mob to show up. It makes literally

as much sense as a mob showing up at a Taco Bell to protest the results of an

Orlando Magic game. Hey, guys, those two things are unrelated. You got some bad

intel. Go home, you fucking idiots.

But from there, the riots spread nationwide.

with mobs targeting mosques and hotels, housing asylum seekers, and leading to

what's been called the worst unrest the UK has seen in more than a decade. And

it was significantly fuelled by Twitter, with false or unfounded claims about

the Southport attacker getting at least 155 million impressions in the days

after the attack. And when the police there eventually made arrests for

racial hatred, one of the men convicted happened to be earning £1 ,400 a month.

from his activities on the site. And it is hard to deny Twitter's role as, at

the very least, an accelerant.

Two of the major voices spreading dangerous misinformation were Andrew

Tommy Robinson, who, remember, Elon reinstated to the platform. And Elon

was acting as a sort of amplifier to the point that he replied to one post about

the attacks with, civil war is inevitable.

And it's not like some of the key participants have denied how... critical

Twitter's role has been.

Robertson's far -right movement picked up significant steam in the wake of

Southport. And here he is, not long after the riot, giving credit where he

it's due.

Look what we've achieved in six months. We've gone from through the roof, thanks

to Elon Musk, built a cult movement, ready, inspired many.

And we're ready.

Yeah, not great. And if that wasn't bad enough... Robinson actually hosted an

anti -immigration Unite the Kingdom rally in London last year, and you'll

guess who he managed to get as a special guest.

The huge crowds in Westminster didn't sign out just for Tommy Robinson.

They're also chanting someone else's name.

Elon Musk joining in from America.

Whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you.

You either fight back or you die.

Okay. Saying fight back or die to that crowd is so malevolent I can barely wrap

my head around it. And I've got to say, what he's doing there sure does seem

like a strong case of, if I may quote Elon himself, someone whispering

things, things that weren't true, and they're pushing a nihilistic, anti

-civilisational mind virus to the world. It is worm -tongue coded, at least, is

what I am saying here.

And look, this is typically where I trot out my hit catchphrase, what can we do?

You know it, people go crazy when I say it. It's on t -shirts now and I can't

walk down the street without people begging me to say it to them. But right

unfortunately, there's not much we can push for by way of solutions. The fact

is, a massive media platform has been shaped in the image of its poisonous

owner. And it doesn't seem like Elon's going to see the error of his ways any

time soon, seeing his... brain seems to be thoroughly cooked by the garbage he

consumes on his own site. To be honest, he still doesn't seem to have a coherent

vision of exactly what Twitter should be because just watch this recent

interview where he offers a pretty grand vision for it but then gets tripped up

by the most basic follow -up question imaginable and I promise this answer is

much worse than you are prepared for.

I just want to really have a global platform that brings together

Like I said, it becomes close to sort of a collective consciousness of humanity

as possible.

And why is that important, Elon, collective consciousness, to have one

I guess... Why is that important?

I guess it's...

You can also say, like, why... You know, if you consider humans, like, humans

are composed of around 30 to 40 trillion cells.

And, you know, there's trillions of synapses in your mind.

But there's not... The why of it, I guess, is just so we can...

increase our understanding, our understanding, increase our, our

understanding of the universe?

You know, at first, I thought that was embarrassing, what with the full 10

seconds where Elon's brain seemed to buffer like it's loading a video on AOL

1999, but then I saw the little drawing labeled 30 to 40 trillion cells, and it

all totally made sense.

So it seems like the odds of Elon fixing this are pretty slim, meaning all we

can really control is how we each interact with Twitter. And I know that

are some out there who think it's important to stay on it, to be part of

town square, although given that town square now resembles, if anything, this,

I'm not sure much good faith debate is taking place there.

My personal advice is not to post on it at all. I haven't done that in over a

year, although I will be going back there tomorrow to post a link to this

before going silent again and prioritising my OnlyFans.

And look, I know people have their own reasons for staying on Twitter, though

for what it's worth, a lot of what it does... can be replicated elsewhere. If

you want to stay in touch with friends or contacts, maybe try and connect with

them somewhere else. If you spend most of your time sending your significant

other memes and funny posts, there are other sites where you can find those,

also maybe put your phone down and take your wife out to dinner. It's been a

long time since you went out without the kids.

And if you just want to watch arguments, may I recommend the Real Housewives

franchise's The Shakespeare of the Modern Age. All I'll say is, there are

certain areas, like news in particular, where Twitter is now worse than useless.

In fact, for breaking news, it is an active liability, as people routinely

out false information in the wake of tragedies and crises, often for money,

there don't seem to be many guardrails to stop them. All of which is really a

long way of saying that the Twitter that we may have once relied on and the

Twitter that was fun and occasionally useful is just well and truly gone.

And collectively, while it might be sad...

It might be parsnip for all of us too, if I may borrow a truly poisoned phrase.

Let that sink in.

That's our show. Thanks so much for watching. We'll see you next week.

Good night.

How about this for a parsnip?

Straight out of my raised bed.

The raised bed is from there down to there.

And the parsnip is gone from top to bottom.

We'll enjoy that today.

Oh, it's beautiful. We love parsnips in lots of different ways.

Sure.