00;00;03;17 - 00;00;11;17 Athena Have you been zombified by Twitter and the Twitter apocalypse that seems to be impending at the moment? 00;00;12;16 - 00;00;15;02 Dave Only a little. You have the. 00;00;15;02 - 00;00;21;27 Athena Right. I kind of have. I mean, maybe not completely zombified, but I'm definitely nervous about it. 00;00;22;00 - 00;00;24;18 Dave About the end. Why are you nervous about this? 00;00;25;02 - 00;00;46;16 Athena I mean, it depends on how we're defining the Twitter apocalypse. So, I mean, one possibility is like the end of Twitter, right? That could be the Twitter apocalypse. Oh, I'm I'm kind of invested in Twitter. I have to say, I'm. But the more scary thing is that the Twitter apocalypse is Twitter heralding the end of the world as we know it. 00;00;46;29 - 00;00;54;28 Dave Right. That's true. The whole thing of will it lead to like a civil war? That's the thing where I'm like, oh, that seems like that could be inconvenient. 00;00;55;02 - 00;01;05;26 Athena Yeah. Or just some more routine violence or whatever. I mean, there's so many there's so many possibilities of how Twitter could make things worse, but there's so much potential for it to make things better. 00;01;07;20 - 00;01;08;20 Dave If you say so. 00;01;10;04 - 00;01;12;18 Athena Well, that's what we're that's what we're talking about today. Really? 00;01;12;21 - 00;01;13;21 Dave Right. That's true. 00;01;13;21 - 00;01;14;19 Steven Yeah. So. Yeah. 00;01;14;22 - 00;01;39;17 Athena And I want to welcome everybody to this room here with me and Dave and our guest, who we will soon introduce you to, Steve. Steven Beschloss, we are here. Zombified podcast where your source for fresh brains. I'm your host, athena activists. I'm a psychology professor at ASU and I'm also the executive producer of Zombified Media. 00;01;40;03 - 00;01;55;08 Dave And I am your co-host, Dave Lambert Kenrick, a creative director for the psychology department at ASU and Zombie Enthusiast and sort of social media sometimes. And I don't know if enthusiasm is the word. 00;01;55;17 - 00;01;58;28 Athena I'm sorry. What is your relationship to social media day or. 00;02;01;05 - 00;02;06;10 Dave I've used I guess maybe recovering social media enthusiast is maybe the the best. 00;02;06;10 - 00;02;11;10 Athena Word. Are you enthusiastic about your recovery or you were previously enthusiastic about social media? 00;02;11;13 - 00;02;17;21 Steven Neither So, yeah. 00;02;17;24 - 00;02;51;04 Athena All right. Well, speaking of enthusiasm, you know what I am enthusiastic about? It's this episode. Yes. This episode is so good. And Steven is just like the, you know, expert from the inside out kind of on what's been going on with Twitter because he has experienced it in its many forms from like it being this amazing community for like real discussion to the, you know, current situation, which well, I'll let him explain it to you in his own words. 00;02;51;04 - 00;03;13;00 Dave But and I will say we talk a bit about things like free speech, you know, and who is human and what counts as human. And those are things I am very enthusiastic about. So even though I personally I was on Twitter for like three months and then I quit, I was like, so long 80 followers, even though they were all awesome. 00;03;13;08 - 00;03;17;22 Dave Oh, yeah, I still like talking about it. I think it's really interesting. 00;03;17;22 - 00;03;18;04 Steven Episode. 00;03;18;11 - 00;03;21;17 Athena Awesome. Well, let's hear from this week's Fresh Brain. 00;03;21;22 - 00;03;59;06 Speaker 4 Steven Beschloss I know it's crazy, but it seems so logical aside. But it's something psychological is doing. Makes me actually, I do. I'm not trying to be all that analytical. We seem to m to remind myself how all this could be, but something else is taking over me. 00;03;59;06 - 00;04;00;27 Athena I'm so ready for the Twitter apocalypse. 00;04;00;27 - 00;04;01;16 Dave Oh, my gosh. 00;04;01;25 - 00;04;08;17 Athena No, maybe I'm not. I'm. Well, I'm ready to talk about the Twitter apocalypse. I don't know if I'm ready for the Twitter apocalypse, but I'm ready to talk about it. 00;04;08;17 - 00;04;13;01 Steven Thank you. Let's let's try to kind of keep it pushed off for a while, if we can. Thank you. 00;04;14;11 - 00;04;29;24 Athena All. Steven, thank you so much for being here with us today. Really excited to have you. Can you just give us your own in your own words? Tell us a little bit about who you are and how you have come to be. I mean, maybe one of the world's foremost experts on the Twitter apocalypse. 00;04;29;28 - 00;04;31;19 Steven Oh, goodness. That's that's already. 00;04;31;19 - 00;04;31;29 Dave Quite. 00;04;34;06 - 00;05;17;12 Steven And I'm going to try to keep it really simple. Not not not overdo it. I mean, I tell you my university connections first. I'm professor of practice in the Cronkite School of Journalism, also the culture of global Futures at Arizona State University. I lead the narrative storytelling initiative across the University, which is really focused on, you know, storytelling in a whole number of different modes, you know, from the written word to film and television and theater and audio just like this, you know, with the idea of trying to, you know, make sense of the world and share with people insights that, you know, in general, given the university, smart people have to say, but don't 00;05;17;12 - 00;05;36;26 Steven necessarily know the best ways to say them. I got, you know, my background is as a journalist, and that's true for a long, long time. And, you know, I've written for lots of magazines and newspapers and, you know, The New Yorker and The Washington Post and the New Republic and Smithsonian and, you know, a ton of other places like that. 00;05;37;18 - 00;06;04;28 Steven You know, I've also written books, wrote a book about Lee Harvey Oswald and his relationship with his mother, with the very specific idea of trying to get people to think about like there's a world you think you know, but you don't write. There's a reason why he ended up in Dealey Plaza. And it wasn't because, you know necessarily that he was insane or or necessarily that it was the CIA getting him there, that it had more to do. 00;06;05;08 - 00;06;28;00 Steven I think that you go back and look at the dynamic of the boy's life and his relationship with his mother in that kind of downward spiral that led him there. Just an aside. But yeah, maybe, maybe relevant in the time when we're talking about sort of people both in a conspiratorial mindset and also, you know, really hyped up right now about, you know, the state of the world. 00;06;28;05 - 00;06;44;04 Athena Absolutely. Well, and I can say I have had so much fun working with you. You know, we've had the chance to do some projects together. You helped me a lot with this, you know, putting a bunch of my thoughts into words and an essay in a format I'd never done before a few years ago. 00;06;44;04 - 00;06;50;12 Steven So essays and yeah personal narrative essay. Yeah. And you yeah, you've nailed that. 00;06;50;15 - 00;07;12;19 Athena Oh I think well it was all all your help so I really appreciated that. And I'm so grateful that you're here today to talk with us about Twitter because I don't know about you Dave, but I am just so unsure about what is going to happen with the future of Twitter. And, you know, I'm invested in it, not to the extent that that you are, Steve. 00;07;12;19 - 00;07;36;18 Athena And I think you're like you have like two orders of magnitude more followers than I do. So like, there's you're definitely much more invested, but I've put a lot of time and energy into like trying to cultivate like a platform on Twitter where I'm providing information that I feel like is valuable and engaging with people. And I just don't know what the future is going to hold with Twitter. 00;07;36;18 - 00;08;09;24 Steven You, you and everyone else. You know, frankly, I don't think even Elon Musk knows what, although he might want to suggest that he does, doesn't know what the future is. He's kind of making it up, it seems, as he's going along. You know, that's been pretty clear since he started it. But, you know, I would say just just to kind of set in terms of my own engagement with it, I mean, I you know, I started this, you know, really at the time of the Trump years and specifically because in those years, I, you know, it was necessary to say what was right and what was wrong, what was true and what was false, what 00;08;09;24 - 00;08;31;20 Steven was a lie, what wasn't, you know, what's normal and what's crazy, because I felt like it wasn't enough. And this is where I had started just being very neutral, very factual. You know, I'm always rooted in facts, but but it felt like it was important to to do what I wasn't doing before, which was to start saying increasingly, explicitly what I was thinking and what I was feeling. 00;08;31;28 - 00;08;48;09 Steven And when I did that, the whole thing just started to accelerate kind of like crazy. I mean, at that point I might have had 5000 followers. I mean, I got to the point where, I mean, I, you know, I mean, I tend to add something in the range of, you know, 5 to 10000, you know, every few weeks. 00;08;48;10 - 00;08;48;21 Steven What? 00;08;48;21 - 00;08;53;20 Athena Wait, wait, wait. So so you're saying at first you were kind of really just posting factual. 00;08;54;00 - 00;09;17;13 Steven Then, you know, linked a link to a story and now that sort of thing. Most people do like, here's an event that we're going to do. Yeah, we use it almost as a promotional tool. Yeah, but what I understood was that, you know, and this was just what started to happen in terms of the response to is like, like people are especially in those same, like they're struggling and they're trying to make sense of a world that was feeling increasingly crazy. 00;09;17;22 - 00;09;37;24 Steven And so, you know, the more that they felt that I was sort of tapping into what they were thinking and kind of help them to make sense of things, you know, the more I found that people engaged and, you know, I mean, now it's, you know, I mean, I have over 280,000 followers and and, you know, and it's still like, you know, this month it went up like 17,000. 00;09;37;24 - 00;09;40;25 Steven I mean, it just wow, the thing just keeps going. 00;09;40;25 - 00;09;44;22 Athena And so you keep getting more followers as people are like leaving Twitter. 00;09;44;22 - 00;10;06;20 Steven Well, it's both. It's both. So, you know, the the whole follower thing is super weird right now. I mean, I've had periods were literally like in a couple of days, like five or 10,000 followers disappeared. And and I posted something just to say and somebody else had suggested it, you know, you know, like, hey, you know, I'm I'm been automatically unfollowed from you. 00;10;06;27 - 00;10;28;20 Steven So there's something going on, you know, whether it's you know, musk, you know, messing with the algorithm or what exactly they're doing. But what's clear is that a lot of progress of voices have been seen. Their follower counts drop in. A lot of the more, you know, right wing and extremists are seeing their numbers going up if they've been invited back in. 00;10;28;27 - 00;10;38;00 Steven And and what's been happening is, you know, I've had lots of people saying like, yeah, I was just unfollowed. I have no idea why it happened, but from you. 00;10;38;11 - 00;10;46;00 Athena So wait, wait. So like, there's just like mysterious unfollowing happening that nobody has but. 00;10;46;04 - 00;11;04;04 Steven Started, so there are more people exiting. That's true. Yeah, but, but you can see there's all kinds of, you know, more progressive people have been saying like, my follower counts are dropping. And then when they mention, like, hey, you know, were you unfollowing me? And people say, like, I didn't unfollow you, that I was unfollowed. 00;11;04;24 - 00;11;05;12 Athena What? 00;11;05;14 - 00;11;17;09 Steven So this is going on right now. Right. And it's part of, you know, this sort of effort to sort of begin to shift, you know, whose voices are heard. Wow. 00;11;17;09 - 00;11;22;06 Athena I had no idea that the Twitter apocalypse was at this level. 00;11;22;10 - 00;11;26;11 Steven Oh, yeah. Well, so that's so that's the start. So so that's. 00;11;26;11 - 00;11;27;03 Athena Only the beginning. 00;11;27;03 - 00;11;46;13 Steven Okay, So so how about the fact that, you know, before it's not like I lived in a happy little bubble where there was never a differing point of view. There has always been, you know, people who have had a lot of different thoughts, you know, I mean, of course, there's been you know, by and large, people are on the same wavelength. 00;11;46;13 - 00;12;17;02 Steven But but in this last period, you know, the world has seismically and precisely I mean, I can pretty much chronicle the when of this shift that's going on August 8th was the FBI search of Mar a Lago. A month later was when Biden gave his sole of the nation speech where he directly targeted characterize the MAGA Republicans and the danger that they represent to the republic. 00;12;17;25 - 00;12;41;01 Steven And then you know, then that's that's and you know early September and then a month later in October, you know, Elon Musk takes over. And each time I started to see a rise of the whole kind of, you know, wound up abusive MAGA crowd attack, attack, attack, attack. No matter what, I would tweet, write my stuff. It is political. 00;12;41;21 - 00;13;09;14 Steven I do have strong things and strong views to say about Trump and about the Republicans and the danger that they represent to the democracy, to the to the country. I've been doing that. I've been saying that for years. It's not anything new. But but now, I mean, a thousand replies that are all ad hominem attack. You know, you're an asshole, you're a moron, you're an idiot, you're a clown, you know? 00;13;09;27 - 00;13;40;27 Steven And on and on and on with that sort of level of engagement and and when I would say anything about it, the response was always, Oh, you don't like differing opinions, right? When really all it is is just abusive assault. And I give one example because I just think it's it's sort of a pure one, which I wanted to see whether like the contrary opinions were that they really were deeply focused on a democratic issue or a difference of opinion. 00;13;41;15 - 00;14;16;04 Steven I tweeted two words kindness matters among the responses Fuck you, exclamation point, exclamation. Wow. So this this is this is the the free speech world that Elon Musk has created now. And I you know, a lot of you know, a lot of my friends that I've made and, you know, I have this kind of fantastic this is why it's so difficult this period for a lot of people, is that people have built communities, write letters, you know, like you said, and friends and, you know, people you would never know otherwise. 00;14;16;04 - 00;14;40;18 Steven I mean, lots in my own case, for some reason, lots of Hollywood people follow me. And, you know, and I have back and forth, you know, with, you know, a lot of I mean, as it turns out, famous people, which I wouldn't have done otherwise. But we connect it through Twitter. And, you know, they'll send me direct message like I'm thinking about leaving or I'm leaving or, you know, I don't know how much more of this I can take. 00;14;40;18 - 00;15;03;29 Steven And, you know, Jim Carrey, who has eight and a half million followers a couple of days ago said, you know, I'm out. I'm I'm not doing this anymore. And, you know, that's just an example of a lot of people, you know, with millions of followers who are just tired of the apocalyptic end of the world abuse that seems to be showered upon people who are, you know, who are not of the same ilk. 00;15;04;02 - 00;15;20;17 Athena Yeah. So what was it like before? I mean, was there like discourse that you felt was productive across the political aisle? Did you feel like there was a space for something really productive to be happening in terms of those conversations? 00;15;21;05 - 00;15;44;14 Steven Hugely. I mean, I mean, I so enjoyed I mean, you know, sometimes the way it works with Twitter is like you really have to write declarative sentences, right? It's not they can't be super nuanced. You can do I mean, you can write a few sentences. You can say something that's a paragraph 280 characters. But what But I loved actually just asking a question, right? 00;15;44;20 - 00;16;20;05 Steven I mean, how can we fix democracy? How can we, you know, change the you know, the the, you know, the process by which presidential candidates are nominated and elected, you know, very basic, almost civics education and kinds of questions and 3000 replies later. Wow. Right. You get this incredible insight on what you know, people think you know, and for and for myself, the excitement of it is that, you know, I can tweet something and pretty quickly get an idea what's on people's minds, right? 00;16;20;05 - 00;16;35;25 Steven I mean, now I'm getting a very particular version of that. But but it's always you know, there's always been, of course, people that disagreed, but but not with the you know, with the kind of abuse and and hate that that now seems to be most aggressively happening. 00;16;36;07 - 00;16;50;23 Athena Well, and if the point of something like Twitter is to have conversation with diverse people who you might not otherwise see in your daily life, then, you know, not having a discourse that is civil. 00;16;50;27 - 00;16;51;08 Steven Right. 00;16;51;18 - 00;16;53;13 Athena Is really problematic. Right. 00;16;53;14 - 00;17;16;11 Steven Right. You know, ad hominem attack. Right. I mean, I gave a few examples that was just, you know, a tiny slice of the of the different ways people can attack you. I mean, I as I say, I'm I'm happy to have a dialog or for there to be differing perspectives for people to talk to each other. And the you know, the best part of it is like I would tweet something and quickly, I'm gone. 00;17;16;11 - 00;17;40;27 Steven I'm not even a part of it. And there is, you know, 500 people talking to each other. So there'd be all these kind of sub communities of discourse that was going on where, you know, I just essentially had a prompt. They got other people to talk and you know, that. So that kind of opportunity for people to connect with each other, it genuinely was a it has been a form of, you know, electronic community building. 00;17;41;03 - 00;17;47;15 Steven Absolutely. Which has been, you know, exciting and delightful, addictive, also, I can tell you. 00;17;47;15 - 00;18;04;14 Athena But yeah, well, maybe let's talk about that side of it a little bit, right? Like, because I mean, I know that there have been times in my life when I've been totally zombified by Twitter, you know, I'm like on there. I'm like scrolling and scrolling and I'm like, All right, it's 1230. It's one in the morning. 00;18;04;14 - 00;18;29;05 Steven It's something else to do, like sleep, right? It does that. It does that. And I can tell you, it just just because I get all this kind of crazy engagement, right? Thousands of engagements, everything. I mean, I the month of the insurrection, which is, you know, January of 21, I had 60 million impressions that month. Right. It was like 2 million a day. 00;18;29;05 - 00;18;50;25 Steven And, you know, probably 10% engagement. So it just means lots of replies and, you know, all the ways, you know, the retweet and all of that just a lot of engagement with people. And, you know, it's a little bit like for my experience, it's a little bit like a slot machine where it's tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. You tweet something and just seeing the numbers going like crazy, it has a kind of dopamine effect. 00;18;51;22 - 00;19;17;02 Steven I mean, you know, that's just the truth. And I, I would say to you, if this is my own zombie ification, I mean, I, I, I felt like I was doing this out of duty and principle of service to my country. I genuinely didn't think there was that noble impulse. On the other hand, you know, the tick, tick, tick of the numbers going up, up, up was, you know, the dopamine rush of it. 00;19;17;08 - 00;19;19;03 Steven Then there's no question that's a part of it. 00;19;19;11 - 00;19;51;20 Athena Yeah, Well, I mean, the whole model of Twitter and a lot of these social media platforms really is just to get us to go on and create content for free. You know, we're unpaid content creators, right? We get on, we make that content and then that content is used to grab other people's attention, in particular, the people that, you know are our friends and colleagues and the community that we're trying to build to keep their eyes on the platform so that the platforms can sell ads to all of our friends and colleagues. 00;19;51;20 - 00;19;55;20 Athena Right? So. Right. We're kind of part of a giant machine. Yeah. 00;19;55;26 - 00;20;27;11 Steven And I think that's exactly why now you have a lot of people saying like, I'm not going to I'm not going to help Elon Musk in his mission. Right. I mean, he's he's already turned off probably most of the advertisers. He's created this environment where advertisers don't want to be a part of this world that seems to be more and more defined by hate and abuse, you know, all in the name of free speech, as if as if free speech doesn't have any, you know, borders around it, any parameters of what's appropriate and what's not appropriate. 00;20;27;11 - 00;20;42;28 Steven You know, there was no content moderation. You know, I you know, I never used to block people, right? I mean, I just didn't do it. I just, you know, thought like, that's kind of a cheap thing to do now. I mean, now blocking could be my full time job. 00;20;43;03 - 00;20;43;12 Athena Oh, my. 00;20;43;12 - 00;21;04;19 Steven Gosh. You know, block by block, block, block. I mean, I started to do it when, you know, the people were saying that, you know, COVID is a hoax and, you know, vaccines are going to kill you. I mean, I didn't want them to use my feed to perpetrate that lie. And then the, you know, the big lie of election fraud, they were doing that. 00;21;04;19 - 00;21;20;26 Steven And then I you know, those two, you know, big problems that misinformation, disinformation got me to start blocking. But but now, I mean, it I mean, as soon as I see some sort of ad hominem abuse of attack, I'm blocking. 00;21;20;26 - 00;21;32;13 Athena So when you said you don't want them to be using your feed in that way, is that because they would like post to your feed and people who are looking at who's posting or is there some other mechanism? Well, no. 00;21;32;13 - 00;21;59;10 Steven It's just thousands. You know, thousands of people are looking at a at a given tweet. Yeah, right. I mean, I mean, you know, there were tweets that had a million or 2 million impressions or something. Yeah. If they're reply was somewhere high in it, then lots of people would see the replies. So it was a danger. Wow. And so they were able to sort of, you know, piggyback on on my feed to be able to further their, you know, their disinformation. 00;21;59;17 - 00;22;11;21 Athena That's interesting. I hadn't really thought about that. But I guess if you have an account with lots of followers and you kind of have a responsibility, it's almost like grooming your feed, like a little hygiene, right? Like got to pick off all the. 00;22;11;27 - 00;22;12;16 Steven You know. 00;22;12;16 - 00;22;13;17 Athena Parasites from your. 00;22;13;17 - 00;22;26;03 Steven Feed. Yeah. And now, I mean, I mean, I've had to apologize to people who, you know, have followed me and used to engage who say, like, I can't, I can't actually reply on your feed anymore because I get attacked. 00;22;26;17 - 00;22;27;15 Athena Oh, wow. 00;22;27;23 - 00;22;48;14 Steven See how it starts to like, has that kind of viral effect. It's not just me. It becomes anybody who's who's sort of in my orbit. Wow. It's it's a dangerous and that's the thing. It starts to create this dangerous space. So it's not only the, you know, the political dynamic of like, I don't want to support Elon Musk and look what he's doing. 00;22;48;14 - 00;23;16;12 Steven And I think those are real things. And, you know, there have been studies in the last couple of months that are you know, since it's not just me anecdotally telling this, I mean, who have done studies that have been able to document rising hate speech, you know, the top users of and, you know, most widely read accounts that are there's more anti-Semitic, more LGBTQ hate, you know, more hate speech in those accounts. 00;23;16;19 - 00;23;23;28 Steven And and that's been specifically chronicled chronicled from the time that Elon Musk took over in October. 00;23;24;06 - 00;23;34;16 Athena So, I mean, really, like, it's been polluting the information sharing space in a way with a lot of hatred that interferes with people communicating more generally. Yeah. 00;23;34;16 - 00;23;56;01 Steven And look, I'm you know, I'm I'm I'm Pollyanna ish enough that I'd like to think that people can actually talk to each other and have a, you know, a conversation, you know, even if they have different points of view and, you know, and I get it, you know, sometimes people are I mean, you know, are not very high minded about all of this. 00;23;56;01 - 00;24;15;01 Steven And I and I get it. I mean, left and right. I mean, there's a lot of you know, people have been really full of anger. Right. A lot of rage over these last years. And they've shown it right. They've been, especially when you're hiding behind some anonymous label. Right. Where they're it's not their name on it. They're just, you know, you know, MAGA 12 or something like that. 00;24;15;01 - 00;24;22;03 Steven Then they can say anything they think without consequence. But that's gotten a lot worse. 00;24;22;03 - 00;24;39;00 Dave I've never been that's not I've never been on Twitter. I was on Twitter for three months, but I always thought this was the whole point of Twitter was a place for people to yell at each other. And so and then I went on in the summer and I tried to delete my account, actually, after Elon Musk took over, but then it wouldn't let me. 00;24;39;08 - 00;24;56;02 Dave And so my account is still exists. But I deleted the app and which I guess my question about this would be, is this not inherent in this sort of micro platform? Like can you really have a I guess it sounds like you were saying you were having conversations. 00;24;56;02 - 00;25;14;01 Steven Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, even like made like real world friends from it, Right. And, you know, had all kinds of, you know, interesting opportunities, you know, and it's not just sort of, you know, that side of it, but but people connected in the, you know, in the virtual world enough that they wanted to connect in real world ways. 00;25;14;10 - 00;25;40;08 Steven So so that's been going on. But, you know, there was so-called content moderation. And that's actually what Musk is attacking, that the content moderation. I mean, he basically fired all of those people now with the idea that like what they were moderating was the, you know, the conservative so-called, you know, more right wing voices. So, you know, his thing is content. 00;25;40;08 - 00;26;03;21 Steven Moderation now means let everybody back. Right? So so suddenly, you know, yeah, we want Donald Trump back, even though he was, you know, violently in inciting a violent insurrection, which is why he was, you know, taken off the site in the first place. So there was at least an effort to try to put some filter on the worst. 00;26;03;21 - 00;26;16;10 Steven And that's what now they're all saying, well, you know, you all you people just thought it was that the worst was us on the right, not not just, you know, civil dialog across the board. 00;26;17;01 - 00;26;41;18 Dave So one thing I so I have been moderated by YouTube. I thought the best I made the videos for the the human behavior and evolution society and they pulled the page and they never told me why. They said it violates our content policy. It's kind of terrifying, like to have that sort of like, you know, you just get a sort of form letter and then you say, why? 00;26;41;18 - 00;26;44;25 Dave And they say, we decided and we're not. 00;26;44;29 - 00;26;47;13 Athena Because there was like stuff about sex. And it probably. 00;26;47;13 - 00;27;00;09 Dave I have no idea, like literally no idea. And so it's this was an academic conference that I filmed and they just pulled it. And so it's like there is there is something I find very scary about the idea of moderation, you know? 00;27;00;28 - 00;27;16;21 Steven Well, there's a flip side of that. So and I and I actually had this experience in the last few days. So I you know, I periodically get death threats. Right. And, you know, for the most part, I you. 00;27;16;21 - 00;27;22;05 Athena What do you mean? You periodically get death threats like through Twitter email, like because of the things you're posting. 00;27;23;10 - 00;27;47;29 Steven Oh, oh, my. You know, I mean, it's it's sometimes it's sometimes it's directly on Twitter. Sometimes it's, you know, really vile emails. Sometimes it's like postcard sent to my house. What, you know, all of that. And, you know, I just I have a really thick skin in general. But again, especially in this period, I've gotten a little bit more, shall we say, sensitive. 00;27;47;29 - 00;28;12;04 Steven And there was somebody who basically I don't even know what I tweeted, but he his reply was, you know, you need to be put up against the wall hahaha, you know, And and he didn't say, I'm going to shoot you, but he said, I'm going to, you know, you should be shot. And I sent that over. I reported it to Twitter, who then reported back to me, No, we don't see any violation of our policies. 00;28;13;19 - 00;28;21;29 Dave So. So it's weird, right? And so it is there's this sort of strange question of who is deciding this. 00;28;21;29 - 00;28;37;27 Steven And nobody at the moment except for Elon Musk. You know, he fired all the people who were doing the content moderation. And he, you know, essentially on the basis of whim, has decided, you know, who who lives and who dies, who gets to stay and who's who's currently. 00;28;37;27 - 00;28;39;05 Dave I can't leave. I'm not allowed. 00;28;39;05 - 00;28;41;11 Steven To, you know, that's it. 00;28;41;24 - 00;28;54;08 Athena I'm kind of curious, like, about the the timeline of what's been happening on Twitter. You give me like a little breakdown of like, you know, when when did you plan to. I don't even remember when he took over. 00;28;54;08 - 00;29;10;01 Steven In about a month, I mean, in the latter part of October. Okay. So, I mean, there's enough time to see things. And again, you know, he's I mean, he's he's let Trump back on. He's letting a lot of the most extreme voices sort of back on. 00;29;10;02 - 00;29;12;02 Athena Did that all happen kind of right away? 00;29;12;02 - 00;29;32;12 Steven Yeah. I mean, in the kind of coming weeks. And, you know, he started by saying he was going to put together a of an advisory board to help decide on content moderation. And then he quickly scrapped that and decided like he was going to decide everything, which is pretty much what he's been doing. And, you know, and and then he's been doing these polls. 00;29;32;12 - 00;30;02;11 Steven So the you know, you know, I'm almost embarrassed on his behalf to mention these as polls sort of in an academic context. But his polls are, you know, should I let Donald Trump back on on the you know, on Twitter and then he gets, you know, whatever to, you know, 20 million responses or something and said, okay, the people have decided actually the people and God have decided they're the people are the voice of God. 00;30;02;11 - 00;30;25;26 Steven What He's back on now, of course, some percentage I don't know exactly how many, but some, I would guess a meaningful percentage are probably bots. Yeah, you know, but those are according to him, the people and the voice of the people. So, you know, and he's using these kind of faux surveys as a way to justify his decisions. 00;30;27;01 - 00;30;28;03 Athena I kind of want to talk about. 00;30;28;03 - 00;30;29;11 Steven Bots and trolls and stuff. 00;30;29;11 - 00;30;30;04 Dave Yeah, I think. 00;30;30;05 - 00;30;30;08 Steven That. 00;30;32;02 - 00;31;04;07 Athena Because I mean, it really is like there's been such a shift in terms of, you know, what we think of as community and then what, you know, like what are the influences on how we perceive community. And a lot of the entities that we think are people are not actually people on these platforms and it's so weird that like us as a humans, we can just be like, you know, oh yeah, this is a person because we're used to like there are. 00;31;04;07 - 00;31;07;26 Steven People, people reacting to the bots as if they were people, right? Yeah. 00;31;07;26 - 00;31;12;03 Athena And not even I mean, some people don't have any idea that they're. 00;31;12;19 - 00;31;42;16 Steven Oh well, and you know, I am, I write all the time. I'm not. I mean I am, I am I guess in a good bit of time who's a part and who's not. I am. But you know if it's you know, you know, ultra maga freak 20 7943626 and then you read it and, and it's this kind of garbled version of the English language, you know, not just because they're so rage filled, but because they, I don't know, they live in some other country and they don't even know what grammar is in the English language. 00;31;42;21 - 00;32;06;20 Steven It's pretty clear that one's a bot. And and so sometimes you can tell by the language that's used, a lot of times you can tell because, you know, gee, they have so much to say. And, and they've had their account for, you know, 20 days and they have two followers. Right. But, but suddenly they've already got like, you know, 400 tweets and they're all just attack tweets. 00;32;06;28 - 00;32;26;19 Steven Wow. So, you know, there's there's you know, there's a way at least I just you know, manually or anecdotally to be able to to at least get a sense of it. But I'm pretty sure that there are sometimes like they sure seem like a bot, but they're an actually they are humans and they're just, you know, in their own special place. 00;32;27;01 - 00;32;32;28 Athena So we have bots and then we have trolls and they're sort of different kinds of things, right? 00;32;32;29 - 00;33;05;18 Steven Yeah, Yeah. I mean, obviously the bots are on automated, automated replies that are, you know, sent out by bot farms. They may be they're in Russia, maybe they're in Korea, maybe they're somewhere else, but that are that are targeted, that are targeted towards specific accounts and targeted for specific campaigns. So around the time of, you know, the election, I got a lot of like, you know, you know, Biden is Hitler and you know, Pedo Biden and I finally tweeted something that said, I get it. 00;33;06;25 - 00;33;31;02 Steven Hunter Biden is the most important story in the world. And Hunter Biden's laptop is the most important thing for the country to be focusing on. But please stop sending me photographs of Hunter Biden in his underwear, right? I mean, a thousand I mean, just an endless supply of these things. Now, what percentage of those are the bots that did it or what percentage is it? 00;33;31;02 - 00;33;47;15 Steven Is all the the the human trolls that make the reason that they go on Twitter is just to you know, it's just abuse people, you know, just to like say you're you're an asshole and you're an idiot and you know, you don't understand anything and you're a clown and you should go away. 00;33;47;20 - 00;34;03;15 Dave Now, is that is that trolling or is that like tribal attacks? Right. Because I think the trolling is just like goofing or like the person who, when you put kindness, mattered in prison, but fuck you. I'm like, Right. It's kind of funny. Like, you know, like where it's like, why? 00;34;03;15 - 00;34;11;27 Steven Actually, I almost never, like, make a point of, like, amplifying those things. But I shared that one, you know, because I. Oh, okay, that's sure the quality. 00;34;11;27 - 00;34;22;05 Dave Of discourse these days, but it's it's not a bad joke, you know what I mean? Like sometimes, like just a completely ridiculous response, right? Like, and so that's sort of like, yeah. 00;34;22;06 - 00;34;27;04 Steven People said like, hey, you know, 13 year old, maybe you should like, go back and do your homework. 00;34;27;16 - 00;34;41;17 Dave Right? Yeah. I mean, it's so like because I think of that as trolling, but then I think of the thing is like people attacking on behalf of whatever cause they believe in. That's like a, that's like a tribal gang. 00;34;41;25 - 00;34;44;08 Steven So there could be a tribe of trolls. 00;34;45;06 - 00;34;52;20 Dave I think that's inherently against the nature of trolling. I think trolling is you're just messing around, right? I think I mean, but that could just this could be a semantic question. 00;34;52;20 - 00;35;17;26 Athena No, I mean, I think about like troll farms, right? And like, those are almost like they can also kind of involve elements of bots also, right, where it's like you have some people who their main goal is to, you know, fuck with others in one way or another and that might be just because they're, you know, like in the, in the non troll farm arena you might have just individual trolls that are like, oh haha it's fun to like do the stuff for the teenage. 00;35;17;26 - 00;35;24;09 Dave Like there is a thing of like, Yeah, you're 13, you've got an internet account and now you're just going to say the most ridiculous thing you can possibly say. 00;35;24;10 - 00;35;36;12 Athena Just, Yeah, but, but then there's, but there's a difference then between like the troll farms where there is some goal of, you know, disrupting discourse or interfering with. 00;35;36;12 - 00;36;12;06 Steven Spreading misinformation and disinformation actively. I mean, I'll give you a Facebook example. So this is at the time of the 2016 election. I have a friend who's actually Finnish, but he's lived in St Petersburg in Russia for a long time and around the time of the 2016 election. You know, he was a journalist by. But, you know, but not only did a lot of other stuff and he started constantly posting stuff that was just attacking Hillary Clinton and attacking democracy and attacking America and, you know, free speech and all this kind of stuff. 00;36;12;12 - 00;36;34;07 Steven And it was so specific in a way. I'm I mean, I don't I don't I haven't seen the physical receipts. I'm pretty sure he was on Putin's payroll during that period. Okay. You know, working for one of those farms basically to help spread it. You know, is he a troll? I think he was serving the purpose of a troll, even if it wasn't especially funny. 00;36;34;23 - 00;36;40;05 Dave Well, this is what I'm wondering. Or is it just to get a reaction? Right. You know, like because is it like you said, the hits are. 00;36;40;06 - 00;36;46;29 Steven I would love more of like I just want a reaction because like, if it's a witty, like, trolling, sure. I'm all for that. 00;36;47;13 - 00;36;48;04 Dave Oh, sure. 00;36;48;09 - 00;36;51;14 Steven Not I'm humor live. 00;36;51;14 - 00;37;14;02 Dave Oh, but well, no. So this is this is an interesting question, though, I think, because it's like, how do you figure out who is I guess it's a question of who has what. Right. Like what is considered. All right. This is a reasonable use of Twitter and as a Twitter outsider, like I said in my mind, I think of it as Times Square. 00;37;14;05 - 00;37;27;01 Dave And like, I think you go there and everyone is either yelling at you or trying to sell you something or trying to tell you about some conspiracy theory. Right. And so on. And maybe you'll see like a friend or you'll see a famous person and you'll say hey and they'll say, Hey, back, right? No. 00;37;27;09 - 00;37;37;03 Steven But if they're spitting at you or they're punching you in the face or they're, you know, shouting obscenities at you, you know, you're probably not going to hang around, right? Yeah. 00;37;37;04 - 00;37;38;07 Athena Or pointing a gun at you. 00;37;38;15 - 00;37;41;01 Steven You know, any of those we can maybe. 00;37;41;11 - 00;37;57;15 Dave They can't put in point an actual gun. They can they can say, I'm going to find you and kill you. Right. Which is scary, right? That is definitely scary. But they can certainly yell. I mean, but I also feel like when I lived in New York and I go to Times Square and you see someone yelling and cursing, I mean, it's like it's kind of as fun as seeing a famous person. 00;37;57;15 - 00;38;00;27 Dave You know, It's like that was this is what happened today, right? 00;38;00;29 - 00;38;14;27 Steven Oh, right, right. Yeah. We live in a in a tapestry of of diversity of all, you know, different kinds of humans. Right. And that's a beautiful thing. But until, you know, it's a particular slice that's, you know, targeting you. 00;38;15;03 - 00;38;22;15 Dave Right. So yeah, because this is also so like a bot, right? It seems like a bot, but it's not really that much reason to have bots on Twitter. But if you have a person who's. 00;38;22;15 - 00;38;39;13 Steven Well, it is if you're, if you're somebody who's trying to influence public opinion and an outcome for election or to try to, you know, undermine democracy in one way or another and, you know, to try to push some sort of a lie about, you know, a you know, a president or whatever it is. 00;38;39;26 - 00;38;47;01 Athena Yeah. And I mean, this kind of brings us to, I think, a really important point, which is whose interests are being served right by the model. 00;38;47;02 - 00;38;47;13 Steven Right. 00;38;47;24 - 00;38;55;11 Athena And not just by the model, but also then like how it manifests, how it's instantiated in the world who is benefiting from. 00;38;55;11 - 00;39;19;06 Steven Right, right, right. And look, I mean, the you know, Elon Musk and all the people who are, you know, huge advocates for him just speaking in a political way, not because, you know, they love, you know, going to Mars or they love Tesla, you know, but but because they see him saying like, yeah, let's let everybody back in and let's let all the, you know, right wing people who were denied opportunity need to be heard. 00;39;19;06 - 00;39;44;08 Steven Let them all back in. You know, they all, as best as I can tell, couldn't be happier because suddenly now they're free to to say what they want with the idea that they've got this. You know, I'm going to put it in my words, you know, new overlord who says, you know, I grant you, you know, the power to to, you know, go out, go forth and abuse them. 00;39;44;17 - 00;39;48;03 Dave I mean, or is it they like chaos, you know, like Well. 00;39;48;20 - 00;40;18;14 Steven They're who's the they in that case? Is it Saudi Arabia? Is it Putin? So along with, you know, Elon Musk arriving back east, guess what happened? He suddenly started posting things that were basically Kremlin talking points related to the war in Ukraine, right. Where he was encouraging that the that Zelensky and the Ukrainians should, like go to the peace table, negotiate and, you know, give up certain regions and so forth that that will help to end the war. 00;40;19;02 - 00;40;49;27 Steven I mean to the point where, you know, Zelensky had to, you know, make public statements explaining why that's a wrong thing for their war, for, you know, for their country right now. Wow. So he's using it. You know, he's exploiting it. And is it because he's trying to push these ideas or is it because the chaos agent actually wants to destroy what has been, you know, the public square for for a kind of free speech that they don't want. 00;40;50;08 - 00;41;11;18 Dave So this is so this is a question because I think, you know, talking about sort of zombified, which we're starting to get into, but I'm actually really curious about the flip side of what do you guys imagine since you guys are both really into social media, what do you imagine the most human form like the UN's zombified version of social media could ideally be? 00;41;11;26 - 00;41;16;12 Dave You know what I mean? Is there a way to find humanity in social media? 00;41;18;02 - 00;41;42;26 Steven So I believe there has been some humanity already. I'm not convinced. I mean, you know, I've had people I persuade me to, you know, I mean, I set up a mastodon account. Okay. It's a little complicated. It's a little, you know, user unfriendly and all that. But so far, like, people are nicer, okay? You know, and there is there is it doesn't seem like people are as focused on attack. 00;41;43;29 - 00;41;44;14 Dave You know, it's a little. 00;41;44;14 - 00;42;18;14 Steven Harder to find people I know or friends and all of that. I mean, it's you know, it's sort of starting over and, you know, already the thing has been building and I'm still just trying to figure it out. But but what's true is that, you know, these different platforms tend to attract, you know, a certain population, Right? Twitter is becoming like the mosque version of Fort Sam, you know, which is just all like, you know, hate and conspiracy thinking and all this kind of stuff that's starting to have more and more place in it. 00;42;18;14 - 00;42;35;24 Steven So so I believe in stripping away that stuff. So the beautiful world is actually, you know, where it really is a public square, but where people understand that, you know, we actually can disagree civilly. 00;42;35;24 - 00;42;44;19 Dave I guess my concern when I hear that, oh, is is there a way that that this can be curated that doesn't how do you. 00;42;44;19 - 00;42;45;11 Steven Police that. 00;42;45;15 - 00;42;57;12 Dave And how do you police it without giving without taking away voice from people who have unpopular or. Sure. But genuine opinions like Sure, sure. 00;42;57;12 - 00;43;06;00 Steven And you want them to have the space for that. Yeah. I mean, I you know, I don't necessarily have to engage in a long conversation with them, but it's great that they can. 00;43;06;22 - 00;43;07;19 Dave Yeah. You know. 00;43;07;19 - 00;43;13;03 Steven And, and find their friends, right. I mean, I mean so what do you think. 00;43;13;07 - 00;43;37;06 Athena Yeah, well, I'll just speak from personal experience. I've been, you know, kind of thinking, doing some like social media soul searching these last few weeks, like, you know, how do I want to engage with social media and questions? Yeah, I talked with my agent about it and he's like, you know, fundamentally, it should be fun for you and that should be like the basis of it. 00;43;37;19 - 00;44;02;03 Athena And so I've been trying to like say, okay, if I'm if that's how I'm going to approach social media, like what am I going to do? What am I going to do differently? And I've actually been like following like tons of people on Instagram who played bluegrass, bluegrass music. And so I go to my Instagram feed and I hear like little bits of bluegrass music and licks, and then, like, some of them are people who I know from, like Bluegrass Festival and like, chat with them. 00;44;02;03 - 00;44;05;21 Athena And it's like, okay, I'm having fun on this platform now. I don't. 00;44;05;21 - 00;44;06;06 Steven Know, amazing. 00;44;06;06 - 00;44;18;07 Athena And come from that, but I actually and I actually posted on my Instagram for the first time ever some of my music, which is a parody to the tune of Creep about conspiracy theories. 00;44;18;12 - 00;44;18;17 Dave Huh? 00;44;18;27 - 00;44;34;00 Athena So I was like, okay, I'm going to try making this fun for me, bringing these other parts of my life into what I'm doing on social media and engaging with different communities. So it's kind of an experiment. I don't know how it's going to go, but I'm having more fun. 00;44;34;01 - 00;44;50;26 Steven That sounds like a good experiment. I'm, you know, I'm still I'm still in there like, okay, how much should I engage? You know? I mean, maybe I need to I mean, I you know, I'm going to do a confession here. You know, I was tweeting maybe 10 to 12 times a day. I mean, I felt I felt obliged to do that. 00;44;50;26 - 00;45;17;04 Steven I mean, I have this space to do it. And I and I did I mean, again, from a political perspective, I felt like it was an obligation to, you know, to say what I thought was going on that would might be of some value. But I'm pulling back. I'm trying to do a lot less. Exactly. For the reason it's become a lot less fun and and I, you know, find myself having conversations, you know, with friends where I've said like, gosh, I'm beginning to worry. 00;45;17;04 - 00;45;26;11 Steven I'm like, dispirited by this. It starts to be bad for my mental health. So at the simplest level, you want it to be fun, or at least not bad for your mental health, right? 00;45;26;15 - 00;45;27;01 Dave Oh. 00;45;27;18 - 00;45;28;13 Steven So yeah, follow. 00;45;28;13 - 00;45;29;23 Athena Some blue example is what I. 00;45;29;23 - 00;45;34;06 Steven Would say. It's like I plan. Yeah, you know. 00;45;34;06 - 00;45;50;16 Dave I do like I like skateboarding videos and video game Instagrams and how to do woodworking Instagram. So I like practical things a lot. I never I couldn't I couldn't get into Twitter because I felt like Twitter was all politics. Well. 00;45;51;02 - 00;46;10;16 Steven There is, by the way, animal Twitter. I might. Oh, really? Oh, if you want to. If I ever go there. And yeah, it's just like, you know, beautiful things. You know, the elephant that's interrupting a TV reporter is interview with his, you know, his trunk over his face and, you know, just all kinds of fantastic moments with all kinds of species. 00;46;10;27 - 00;46;16;20 Steven So there's a there's a whole beautiful animal Twitter, that that's awesome. That's also a happy place. 00;46;16;20 - 00;46;18;26 Athena What are some of the other happy places on Twitter? 00;46;19;05 - 00;46;37;19 Steven Hmm? Hmm. I mean, what I don't do I mean, I sometimes I'll I'll, you know, post a picture of my dog and then there's like 2000 pictures of everybody else's dog, know? I mean, that's nice. It has its limits, I think. So there's I'm still. 00;46;37;28 - 00;46;38;03 Dave An. 00;46;38;04 - 00;46;57;12 Steven Animal world, but. But I also agree, like music. I mean, people who love music or people who love movies, you know, who really want to talk about this stuff. It's I mean, I love all of that. So. Oh, that's that's you know, there has to be, you know, that place, you know, in the middle of the, you know, the downpour. 00;46;57;22 - 00;47;09;04 Steven Right. The the downward spiral. There has to be those those places that that still help you to realize, like, you know, no, humanity hasn't all gone to hell. Yeah. 00;47;09;04 - 00;47;42;12 Athena Yeah. Well, and I mean, if you think about it, these platforms are really great places for not just sort of sharing propositional information, right? Like statement arts and, you know, links to articles and things that are, you know, like kind of dry. They're great places now for sharing things that are very dynamic because, I mean, I've at least noticed that, you know, on many of these platforms, video is very, very quickly becoming the dominant sort of, you know, medium that people are using. 00;47;43;10 - 00;48;10;19 Athena And you can have music, you can have dance, you can have, you know, film, you can have, you know, edits that people are making. Absolutely. So there's this opportunity for sort of the very, very, you know, quick sharing of, you know, this sort of complex cultural information that's dynamic and exciting and fun and I think has potential to bring people together in ways that haven't happened before. 00;48;10;19 - 00;48;28;28 Steven You know, And part of some of it's like the emotional space you can create with others. That's part of that. The beautiful version of the social media. But I also and you know, this is why I'm feeling, you know, a bit sad about what's going on right now. It was also a way that you can connect with people who are all over the planet, right? 00;48;28;28 - 00;48;52;08 Steven I mean, you know, that just remains to me. I mean, it's wonderful to have your own small little community of people that are all live in, you know, your town or something like that. It's a whole different thing when it's somebody who's across the world who has, you know, a similar interest, whatever it is. And, you know, that makes, you know, a big and disconnected world feel smaller and more connected. 00;48;52;11 - 00;48;52;21 Steven Yeah. 00;48;52;25 - 00;49;06;14 Athena I found Neil Smith, our illustrator, through Twitter. Really? Yeah. Yeah So, I mean, so much of the, like zombified media world just would not exist if it weren't for Twitter because I would never have found Neil. 00;49;06;15 - 00;49;34;14 Steven So I have to tell you, there was a it's about, I'm going to say maybe a week ago, sometime in the last the last couple of weeks where there was some kind of a breakdown in the operations of Twitter, I think was right after Musk sort of fired most of the Twitter staff. And and then he locked the doors of the headquarters so that people couldn't even come in, said like, you know, we're not letting anybody else in until Monday. 00;49;34;20 - 00;49;54;28 Steven I think it was the fear was that all the aggrieved people were going to come in and, you know, destroy the place one way or another. And and so there was literally one night where lots of people on Twitter, lots of people, you know, friends I've made there. And so everybody was saying bye to each other, like, I'm never going to see you again. 00;49;55;17 - 00;49;59;28 Steven Goodbye. Farewell. I love you. Goodbye. 00;50;00;04 - 00;50;00;29 Athena Oh, my gosh. 00;50;02;06 - 00;50;06;03 Steven And then the day passed and we're all still there. 00;50;06;09 - 00;50;09;07 Athena So it was a Twitter apocalypse. False alarm. 00;50;09;07 - 00;50;39;00 Steven Yeah. Yeah. Well, but I think what it was maybe it was just like the first wave of people saying like, okay, we thought this thing was really like a government utility, right? It's a public square. It's a good you know, of course, it's sort of forever. It's our it's this this, this place that people can can, you know, learn about, you know, when there's a, you know, a flood on my street, I can find out most quickly what's going on and what I should do. 00;50;39;07 - 00;51;05;08 Steven So it has a lot of those kind of public service values benefits that that it's been important for. But I think people understood at that moment when everyone was saying goodbye that this is not a given, this is not forever. And and then people started to, I think, energetically open other accounts and other social media platforms that people are trying to figure out, where else can I go with not here. 00;51;05;08 - 00;51;25;27 Athena Yeah, well, the point that you brought up just now about Twitter and a lot of social media platforms really being in many ways a public good. Yeah, I mean, I think that's so important because the economic model for them is not an economic model that actually makes sense given that the kind of good that it is is a public good, right? 00;51;25;27 - 00;51;54;22 Athena So a public good is something that, you know, anybody can benefit from being a part of, but that it also, you know, it takes energy and effort for people to maintain it as such. Yeah. Yeah. And so how do we if we want to move forward with having social media that is more functional and that can like be a cooperative space, you know, how do we build that in a way that's like true to the nature of social media as being a public good? 00;51;54;22 - 00;52;19;18 Steven So so I just want to pause on the first part of that, really, which is about, you know, this had the ability to be that place for the commons, right? The place, place where people could genuinely talk to each other and share information. And that's a good and, you know, almost I mean, I said sort of government utility in a way, it would be better if it had been you know, there's not an owner. 00;52;19;18 - 00;52;43;16 Steven It was, you know, something that that was understood as being a, you know, a function that the democratic society needs. There's a reason why a lot of the more authoritarian countries have, you know, have turned it off. Right. And are really happy about what's going on. Because, you know, Twitter was really important during the Arab Arab Spring in Egypt. 00;52;43;16 - 00;53;14;16 Steven Right. As a chance for people to talk with each other and connect with each other and figure out what's going on. You know, the Iranians are doing a pretty I mean, they're pretty aggressively keeping people off of social media so that people don't have ways to connect with each other. So so, you know, I'm I'm lingering in that space because, you know, we in all the world of sort of technology and social media, we haven't really figured out how to organize all of that so that it serves the best interest of a democratic society. 00;53;15;27 - 00;53;37;20 Steven Yeah, You know, Yeah. You're just letting you know, you're letting some, you know, megalomaniacs, you know, who for whatever their reasons, either they want money or they want more power, you know, letting them sort of take control of these things and exploiting it for their own purposes. And, gosh, I think we can do better than that. 00;53;37;20 - 00;53;44;28 Athena Yeah. Also, if you were if you were in charge of Twitter, what would you what would you do? 00;53;46;14 - 00;54;17;10 Steven I mean, I'm taking the point that it is complicated because you don't want to just be, you know, saying, you know, you can speak and you can't speak. I do believe in free speech. I would like to I mean, I really would not like to be in charge of Twitter. I would I would like it to be a you know, a government utility, you know, where it's not at the risk of going away if, you know, if Apple or any other, you know, Proctor and Gamble decides they're not going to advertise anymore. 00;54;17;10 - 00;54;30;28 Steven And, you know, it's been losing money all along, you know, at which point you sort of say, like, does it have to be a capitalist enterprise because its value exists beyond, you know, beyond the marketplace. 00;54;31;12 - 00;54;46;29 Athena Well, and also, I mean, having a business model that's based on selling people's attentions seems like it's kind of contrary to creating a, you know, a commons, a public good that people can benefit from. 00;54;46;29 - 00;55;19;00 Steven But, you know, the funny thing is that, you know, you use Twitter, I use Twitter, and everybody who uses Twitter, well, we're all we are, as you put it, like we're all content creators. It doesn't exist if the content creators aren't creating content on it. And so the fact that you have the owner who's driving, you know, the big successful content creators who are attracting lots of people away suggests that his interests are other than, you know, then then the building of the platform. 00;55;19;01 - 00;55;21;04 Athena Oh, that's interesting. I hadn't even thought of that. 00;55;22;10 - 00;55;29;04 Dave I, I so I said the, my, my flip side still. Yes, please. That I still feel like there's this. 00;55;29;05 - 00;55;30;28 Steven Person saying that. 00;55;30;28 - 00;55;56;22 Dave Yeah. That if I think of the way media throughout my lifetime going back to the days of MTV has been zombified by corporate interests, right? Like there is this thing where it loses its punk rock edge or that punk rock edge becomes commercialized. AAM and so I am still trying to figure out how can this not have like neither outcome complete chaos for Twitter doesn't seem like a great outcome but. 00;55;57;01 - 00;56;10;06 Steven Well just let's just let's slice away the hate speech okay you know let's let's slice away the death threats and you know abuse that that's you know that's kind of my bottom line on that. You know. 00;56;10;18 - 00;56;21;15 Dave So is there a way to do that while still maintaining an element of political theater, which I think is sort of key, you know, because I think there is some sort of subversive, you know, the. 00;56;21;15 - 00;56;42;11 Steven World has gotten a little a little more humorless. I think you're right. I think, you know, when people are trying to say, like you shouldn't you know, you shouldn't say that, you know, it's going to make somebody upset. You know, I mean, I agree with you. There's got to be some space for people to be a little bit offended and a little bit upset about something that somebody else says. 00;56;42;15 - 00;56;45;28 Steven But where's the line? That's the the tricky part of all this. 00;56;46;22 - 00;56;52;12 Athena Yeah. I mean, I think one of the things you opened with was that, you know, kindness matters and the fuck you response. 00;56;52;12 - 00;56;52;25 Steven Like, you know. 00;56;53;01 - 00;56;55;13 Athena If that's in person, that's like funny and. 00;56;56;02 - 00;56;56;24 Steven You're both having a. 00;56;56;24 - 00;57;06;11 Athena Laugh over it. But if it's online, it's just like, I don't know, it's not, it's not the same. If it's just the words versus like, Oh, we're hearing each other say, we're hearing intonation. 00;57;06;11 - 00;57;13;15 Steven And I don't know him, you know, I don't know that person. And it was one of those with all the numbers after the fake, you know, anonymous name. So. 00;57;13;25 - 00;57;15;23 Dave Right. But even this there's a part of me that all these. 00;57;16;08 - 00;57;17;17 Steven 13 year old. Exactly. 00;57;17;17 - 00;57;17;25 Dave Yeah. 00;57;18;06 - 00;57;24;23 Steven A 48 year old who just really to tell me how much he hates. We're just talking about. Yeah I guess it would be. 00;57;24;24 - 00;57;48;11 Dave Although even a fuck you, but seems funny to be there is somebody programed to think that searches for anyone who says kindness and you know, like there's. Yeah, like, I don't know. I mean, there is this idea like the creative space of online communities is what I love so much, right? And, um, and I guess I've always been like, Yeah, well, you're going to get a little you're going to get some rough edges, right? 00;57;48;12 - 00;57;59;11 Dave And you're going to get and something and I've had to moderate YouTube comments as well, and there's some really rough ones, you know, And so but it's just so hard. And so, yeah, I don't know. 00;57;59;12 - 00;58;20;00 Steven And this is the thing and again, the the, the mentality is like, okay, free speech means anybody can say anything. And that doesn't work either, right? So I mean, and that's where you get into all these tricky issues, you know, I mean, you know, the you're not allowed to say fire in a crowded theater. Right. 00;58;20;00 - 00;58;36;00 Dave Right. And so I guess this comes back to the Trump you know, I think the the Trump banning does that involved real life violence. Yeah, right. And so that does undercut that idea of like, well, you're not really going to get shot on Twitter because it's like people ended up dead. Yeah. Like and so that is yeah. 00;58;36;08 - 00;58;44;25 Steven I mean we could have a long conversation about stochastic terrorism, you know, and the ways in which what is so. 00;58;44;25 - 00;58;46;10 Athena What is stochastic terrorism? I mean. 00;58;46;11 - 00;59;16;27 Steven It's the, this idea of there are random acts of violence that are, that are random in one sense because they're unpredictable, but they're driven by bias, you know, by certain incitements that that may not be easily directly connected to. He said that and therefore that person went out and shot people. But there's enough of a connection of, you know, a climate of, you know, hate and violence and. 00;59;17;04 - 00;59;18;15 Athena Increasing the probability. 00;59;18;16 - 00;59;44;23 Steven Yes. So so and, you know, the measure has been that there's been a rise in these acts of stochastic terrorism. They weren't exactly predictable. A lot of times they're they might be somebody who's, you know, mentally unwell in one way or another. They're not part of an organized terrorist group, but they've been triggered, you know, they've been triggered by the constant bombardment of, you know, the election was stolen. 00;59;44;28 - 01;00;05;00 Steven And, you know, Joe Biden is, you know, is Hitler and, you know, all that kind of outpouring of stuff. And, you know, the Jews did it and, you know, all the stuff that just goes on and on and on and on all the time and, you know, it's it you can't exactly make the connections ultimately, provably, you know, in a court of law. 01;00;05;00 - 01;00;11;22 Steven But but it's creating this environment that that makes these acts inevitable, even if not predictable. 01;00;12;07 - 01;00;47;23 Athena So there's a question that I have to ask and that we have to ask Usually when I get to this point of asking this question, I'm not like frightened, but I'm really frightened. Like right now I'm like, I need to ask the question. You. No, no, no. So the question is like, if we take what is going on with the zombie ification and Twitter and maybe social media more generally and these shifts that are happening in really how these platforms are being managed economically, politically, socially, etc., and we just. 01;00;47;23 - 01;00;48;20 Steven Or mismanaged. 01;00;48;20 - 01;01;16;16 Athena Or mismanaged. Yeah. And then we turn it up to 11. We do the like, okay, if we just like if this keeps happening and keeps happening in this way, like, what is the what's the zombie apocalypse scenario for the zombie ification that is happening via Twitter, via social media, not just, you know, some ification of us as individuals, but some ification of a lot of the systems that we are embedded in, whether they're economic or political or social. 01;01;16;21 - 01;01;36;29 Steven So so I at least start with the with the Twitter version of that excuse me and and I'm sure that there are a lot of people who are trying really energetically to convince me and a lot of other voices that they don't want to be heard to leave, go away. We don't want you here anymore. And that's their goal. 01;01;37;06 - 01;02;01;27 Steven You know, my reaction is, well, I'm not leaving, especially because you're trying to make me leave, Right? That's that's the first thing. And so, you know, one version of that is you finally convince all the, you know, all these other voices to go away. And then you're left with, you know, the whatever that mixes, you know, the crackpots and the, you know, the aggrieved ones and the conspiracy, you know, theorists and all that. 01;02;01;28 - 01;02;23;10 Steven That crowd. And then they have their own little chaotic world where they feel like they're, you know, they're in power and, you know, and and they convinced everybody else to go away. So I think there is a there's a version of that. So that sort of, if you will, legitimate forms of social media or legitimate communities drive people away. 01;02;23;16 - 01;02;44;05 Steven I mean, we're seeing it also with with the elections and democracy where we're you know, we're they're making an effort to sow fear. And so violence and intimidation to convince people you shouldn't be an election worker or, you know, I mean, I didn't put up a sign in my yard because I didn't want somebody to shoot me. Right. 01;02;44;05 - 01;03;13;03 Steven I mean, it's part of the same thing, right, That that you increase fear and, you know, intimidation and the threat of violence to silence people. So I think there I think that's happening and I think there is more of that happening. And, you know, I think that for me, the question is, how do you you know, how do you make sure that those remain, you know, you know, minority viewpoints, that they don't begin to metastasize and radicalize beyond level that they already have? 01;03;13;15 - 01;03;23;17 Athena So like real life violence and the fear of real life violence is one of the things that you think we really need to be watching out for. Yeah. Could escalate to if we're not. 01;03;23;18 - 01;03;46;10 Steven I mean, and it's you know, it's been statistically I mean the FBI has statistically, you know, documented the rise, you know, in white supremacist domestic terrorism. Right. It's been going up and up and up, you know, Trump years sort of to today. You know, I think it's all part of the same dynamic. Mm hmm. 01;03;46;10 - 01;04;08;06 Athena What are some other aspects of, you know, the sort of changes that are happening with social media and not just, you know, sort of within the platforms, but how they're affecting other aspects of social and economic political life that, you know, if they keep going in the direction that they are now, could have consequences, is that we might not quite realize already. 01;04;08;26 - 01;04;27;04 Steven Well, I mean, the polarization, you know, of the population, you know, where people I mean, don't talk to each other if they're from different points of view. You know, it used to be you could have a different I'm talking now in the real world, you know, you could actually have a Thanksgiving dinner with people had different points of view and have a conversation. 01;04;27;10 - 01;04;54;09 Steven Now, you try desperately not to even bring up the topics because you know it's going to escalate. You know, how do we get beyond that? Because I think that's you know, the effort has been to politicize every aspect of life. And once you do that, then you break down people's trust in institutions and you break down people's trust that they can work with each other, even if they have a different point of view. 01;04;54;09 - 01;05;38;20 Steven So you start to have these, you know, if you will, subcultures or this kind of smaller communities that may have increasingly extreme points of view that that aren't that aren't engaging with the larger community or or those who differ except when it comes to, you know, plotting some kind of, you know, dastardly act. And so, you know, I think the question for me is at a system level is how do you sort of take down the temperature or so we get back to the point where like there is some version of of, you know, a quieter body politic where people can actually work together and where you accept where the population accepts that, like democracy 01;05;38;20 - 01;05;53;12 Steven is a good right. It's actually something we all, as Americans, should be sharing in. I mean, I don't you know, I never used to think that that was a, you know, controversial notion, you know, until I discover there's a lot of people who don't believe in democracy anymore. 01;05;53;12 - 01;06;23;00 Athena Well, I think this idea of, you know, public goods and commons is a theme that we're returning to repeatedly that doesn't have to be inherently political at all. Right. It's just like this idea that there are certain kinds of things like democracy, like a space where information can be shared that everybody from being a part of and that require some investment or some lack of exploitation for them to be able to be maintained. 01;06;23;00 - 01;06;30;21 Athena And this is something that, you know, is inherent to human life has been from our evolutionary beginnings. There are things that are common pool resources. 01;06;30;21 - 01;06;32;05 Steven Cooperation depends on. 01;06;32;05 - 01;06;33;21 Athena It exactly, exactly. 01;06;33;21 - 01;07;09;03 Steven And depends on, in my view, of trust and empathy. So, you know, honestly, in my own work, I mean, as much as anything else, I, I think I'm trying to build empathy towards, you know, toward life, toward people, toward issues that that makes it possible for people to actually step outside of themselves enough to understand why people are acting the way they are and and maybe be able to to then think differently about how to cooperate with somebody and or on some issue. 01;07;09;03 - 01;07;13;26 Steven Because you know what it actually I didn't realize it mattered until I started to care. 01;07;14;00 - 01;07;34;19 Athena Yeah I mean I think also recognizing our interdependence with others, even with people who we have differing opinions with, you know, lot of our interests are still shared in the very big picture. And long term, to me, that's that's hugely important. And then, you know, if we look at like the research that has been done on like how do you actually manage common pool resources. 01;07;35;07 - 01;07;40;06 Athena So a lot of people think, oh, I come common pool resources, like you can't manage it because people will. 01;07;40;23 - 01;07;40;29 Steven Pool. 01;07;40;29 - 01;08;12;24 Athena Resources. So it's a public good. It's like, you know, a resource that people can take from they can exploit or they can, you know, keep filled up and everybody benefits from that being there. And so, you know, but it turns out that a lot of small scale societies manage common pool resources effectively. So. Elinor Ostrom, who was actually here at ASU before her death, she worked on this exact problem of how do you manage common pool resources or how do people manage common pool resources in small scale societies? 01;08;12;24 - 01;08;33;21 Athena And one of the most important things was that the people who benefited from it and the people who had the risks and the costs associated it, they had to be active participants in setting up the structure and managing it. And if you don't have that, then you really can't have an effective, you know, long term common pool resource being maintained. 01;08;33;24 - 01;08;40;15 Steven Partly it limits the trust and belief in it, right? If you participate in the creation of it, you're more likely to be invested in it. 01;08;40;15 - 01;09;16;07 Athena You're more likely to be invested in it. It's less likely that, you know, other sort of goals will be dominant in how you're managing it. If you're, you know part like if it affects you directly and, you know, having a community that's really built around understanding the resource and understanding the risks associated with it and the benefits that come from it is, you know, just like that is essential in having, you know, these come and pool resources be managed effectively in the medium and long term. 01;09;16;07 - 01;09;42;16 Steven You know, Jonathan Haidt, I interviewed him a few years ago, is a social psychologist from from NYU. And, you know, we were he was basically saying, you know, 50 years from now, he wasn't convinced that there would still be a country called the United States of America, that that where there would be 50 states where everyone agrees that the and are committed to the same constitution. 01;09;43;16 - 01;10;13;04 Steven I think the things that you're talking about are like, how do we how do we make sure that we're able to build and sustain or repair the things that are already broken that makes us possible that we can, you know, across the country continue to believe in the, you know, the experiment of the of American democracy. So, you know, so that 50 years from now, you know, Jonathan hates, you know, nervous prediction doesn't become true. 01;10;13;14 - 01;10;29;00 Athena Yeah. How do we how we keep the public good of democracy strong and how do we maybe as we go forward, build these social media platforms as public goods, more than as, you know, zombie fires of the people who are within them? 01;10;29;11 - 01;10;44;08 Steven You know, I mean, don't we want to have like modes of communication where we where we meet interesting and we connect with them and and, you know, you don't you don't leave it feeling dispirited. You leave it feeling uplifted that you're more connected to the world, not less. 01;10;44;13 - 01;11;04;05 Athena Yeah. Okay. So I have to ask a question then before, before we end, because I've been thinking about this like, you know, if we could redesign social media, like, how would we do it? And, you know, one idea is to really, like, make it a government utility that feels kind of boring and might be the right thing. But honestly, that feels that feels boring to me. 01;11;04;05 - 01;11;06;19 Athena And have you ever seen, like the infrastructure, like the online. 01;11;06;19 - 01;11;07;08 Steven Infrastructure for. 01;11;07;15 - 01;11;08;00 Athena Government? 01;11;08;00 - 01;11;09;26 Dave You know, like, like, oh, yeah, oh, my gosh. 01;11;09;27 - 01;11;10;28 Athena Like, you don't want to go on that. 01;11;10;28 - 01;11;16;25 Dave But I think this is sort of this is like what you're asking is sort of a reframing of our normal question of how do we avoid the. 01;11;17;10 - 01;11;18;04 Athena Boringness. 01;11;18;04 - 01;11;21;27 Dave Or the social media apocalypse, How do we avoid this like. 01;11;22;02 - 01;11;22;11 Steven In this. 01;11;22;11 - 01;11;29;05 Dave Apocalypse been talking about? Yeah, how do we make a brighter future? Exactly what, what? Yeah, what does that look like? 01;11;29;05 - 01;12;05;07 Athena Yeah. And because here we are, we're sitting, you know, in my office at Arizona State University. We're all affiliated with the university. And one way or another, what is the role, if any, for universities and oh, like it would just make sense for, you know, an entity, for example, like us ASU, to be like, hey, we're going to we're going to make a social media platform that is meant to be a public good, that is based on the principles from Elinor Ostrom, Common Pool Resource Management, and, you know, do with that as an experiment Like does that is that something that we could do? 01;12;05;28 - 01;12;07;14 Dave I mean, I'll say one thing I. 01;12;07;20 - 01;12;09;21 Steven Think is academic Twitter, but go ahead. 01;12;09;21 - 01;12;24;22 Dave Yeah, I don't know. But I would like to get your take on this, Stephen. But I mean, one thing we've mentioned video. I actually think as we've talked more and more about this idea of bots and trolls and anonymity right now because I was even thinking about how does anonymity change who I am when I'm in these spaces? 01;12;26;01 - 01;12;35;17 Dave I do really like things like YouTube, things like these mini things where you still see a person. So I feel like that's an element I would really like, but I don't know. 01;12;35;17 - 01;12;54;24 Steven What you guys can we, can we stop the anonymous stuff? I mean, it's like when people can hide behind, you know, a fake name, it may free them to to do all kinds of terrible things, right? I mean, they can also make them, like, really funny and free in a way that they aren't in their real life. But but, you know, but it also comes with danger. 01;12;54;24 - 01;13;15;05 Steven So, I mean, I if you have to put your name on it, then, you know, it does have a way of, you know, affecting the way in which you communicate with your fellow humans. So, I mean, you could argue that both ways, but I think there's a value in that. If it's in the university. I mean, I'm I'm going to guess there still is going to be this notion about content moderation. 01;13;15;05 - 01;13;41;13 Steven There's probably going to be some rules of what you can say and what you can't say, words you can use and words you can't mean. I think that might be an even more complicated place, you know, ultimately to decide like the rules of engagement. And I wouldn't be surprised if, you know, most universities, let alone A, you don't want to take on that project because they can see that the you know, the road to victory is like laden with all kinds of minefields. 01;13;41;19 - 01;13;43;00 Dave It's innovative and. 01;13;43;00 - 01;13;43;16 Steven Inclusive. 01;13;45;13 - 01;13;46;23 Dave Guidelines. Let's go for. 01;13;46;23 - 01;13;49;01 Steven It. So. 01;13;49;22 - 01;13;58;29 Dave Yeah, it's really even as I said, the thing of we should have we should show people. I'm like, Oh, then we're just going to have a pretty person Twitter again, right? Because that's what Instagram often turns into. Yeah. So I don't know what the solution is. 01;13;59;01 - 01;14;04;24 Steven So, I mean, you know, only nice people. So I think we can do better than that. 01;14;04;24 - 01;14;07;11 Dave Yeah. 01;14;07;11 - 01;14;23;23 Athena All right. Well, so what's your what's your vision for a positive future of social media and especially Twitter since, you know, it's it is the focus of a lot of attention right now, not just here among us in the room, but I think more broadly. 01;14;23;23 - 01;14;54;19 Steven Well, I mean, I am you know, honestly, I'm still I'm a little bit in a grieving mode right now. And I'm and I'm not I mean, it's not that that that the body is dead, but the body is ailing. And I'm not convinced that there isn't a path forward. You know, when Elon Musk gets tired of the whole thing, you know, he decides like, okay, I just blew $44 billion on this thing and I'm going to go back and, you know, head to Mars and be done with this stuff. 01;14;55;08 - 01;15;16;21 Steven And, you know, there is or that it's at a point of chaos and collapse and bankruptcy. And in the end and and he bails and somebody else says, like, you know, on the ashes of this this thing, I'm going to take it. I we this community of people are going to, you know, kind of rebuild the whole thing. 01;15;16;21 - 01;15;36;28 Steven So I'm I'm not necessarily ready to to envision something totally new. I'm convinced there's still a way to take the the the alien body, you know, recognizing all the chaos and the fires and still actually, you know, bring it back to life a way that that can be the thing that it intended to be from the beginning. 01;15;37;16 - 01;15;45;04 Athena So it's sick, it's not quite dead. And if it is dead, want to you think we can maybe reanimate it? 01;15;45;10 - 01;15;46;19 Steven I think that's possible. 01;15;47;00 - 01;15;52;12 Athena I think that's a great note for us to end on. So maybe the future will be zombie Twitter. 01;15;55;18 - 01;16;02;23 Steven And it'll be a happy place. There will be animal videos and there will be blue grass. I love that. All right. 01;16;02;27 - 01;16;04;02 Dave And animals playing. 01;16;04;02 - 01;16;06;27 Steven Bluegrass. 01;16;06;27 - 01;16;11;20 Athena Well, thank you, Stephen, so much for sharing your brains with us today on zombified. 01;16;11;21 - 01;16;12;08 Steven Thank you. 01;16;12;09 - 01;16;15;06 Speaker 4 And if the world says I. 01;16;15;06 - 01;16;19;15 Steven Work for legally. 01;16;19;15 - 01;16;50;26 Speaker 4 Nobody anyhow, but it does all fall in love, you better tell me right now. Says crazy can burn this motherfucker. Don't fall in love. You better tell me right now. 01;16;50;26 - 01;17;23;05 Speaker 5 You didn't tell me right? Tell me right. And like, tell me and tell me and now I. 01;17;28;21 - 01;17;33;29 Athena Zombified is a production of Arizona State University and zombified media. 01;17;33;29 - 01;17;37;28 Dave And we want to thank everybody who helped make zombified possible. 01;17;38;29 - 01;17;41;09 Athena Including the Department of Psychology. 01;17;41;25 - 01;17;46;08 Dave The interdisciplinary initiative, and the President's office at ASU. 01;17;46;17 - 01;17;49;22 Athena The Lincoln Center for Applied Twitter Ethics. 01;17;50;26 - 01;17;54;03 Dave All the brains and bots that helped this podcast. 01;17;54;15 - 01;17;57;03 Athena Including tall ROM does our sound. 01;17;57;12 - 01;18;00;08 Dave Neil Smith, who does our illustrations. 01;18;00;15 - 01;18;06;04 Athena Lemmy the amazing composer and performer of our song Psychological. 01;18;06;13 - 01;18;11;16 Dave And everyone at the Z team who comes up with provocative trolling tweets, right? 01;18;11;16 - 01;18;12;16 Athena So yeah, love them. 01;18;12;16 - 01;18;12;27 Dave To get. 01;18;12;27 - 01;18;14;21 Steven Those. 01;18;14;21 - 01;18;17;21 Dave What do you get? When do you get it? Upvotes on tweets, likes. 01;18;17;27 - 01;18;18;07 Athena Like. 01;18;18;14 - 01;18;19;08 Dave Yeah, those things. 01;18;19;12 - 01;18;34;16 Athena That's speaking of social media, you can follow us and support us. We're on Twitter and Instagram and even on Facebook now known as Meta. I think I'm actually Instagram and Facebook address book. 01;18;35;00 - 01;18;35;08 Steven Yes. 01;18;35;17 - 01;18;36;25 Dave They're all Yes. 01;18;36;25 - 01;18;37;18 Athena Right. Okay. 01;18;37;18 - 01;18;38;08 Dave Facebook stuff. 01;18;38;08 - 01;18;39;24 Athena It's Facebook. It's still Facebook. Yeah. 01;18;39;24 - 01;18;40;17 Dave So follow you. 01;18;40;22 - 01;18;45;21 Athena Just like, you know, you post on there and like, do you want to post on the other one too? So they're kind of the same thing. 01;18;45;21 - 01;18;51;24 Dave They are kind of the same thing. So that's true. And and we're on YouTube. They should look for all the zombified media stuff on YouTube. 01;18;51;24 - 01;18;52;15 Steven Absolutely. 01;18;52;15 - 01;19;03;21 Athena So in addition to this podcast, we also have this amazing livestream channel that has all sorts of cool shows, television and the zombie apocalypse. So check that out if you have not yet. We on Channel Z. 01;19;04;00 - 01;19;07;23 Dave Are we on like Mastodon or Parler or any of these new ones that are. 01;19;08;02 - 01;19;08;12 Steven We're. 01;19;08;13 - 01;19;09;04 Athena We're not. 01;19;09;15 - 01;19;10;21 Steven But maybe. 01;19;10;21 - 01;19;12;00 Athena You are. I'm not. 01;19;12;23 - 01;19;14;24 Dave I don't know you're the social media expert. 01;19;14;24 - 01;19;15;05 Steven So. 01;19;15;05 - 01;19;16;04 Athena I'm not a social. 01;19;16;04 - 01;19;18;17 Steven Media, right? Yeah. 01;19;18;17 - 01;19;20;29 Dave All right. Well, look for us there and maybe, who. 01;19;20;29 - 01;19;23;11 Athena Knows, maybe by the time this episode is out, we'll be. 01;19;23;11 - 01;19;23;20 Steven There. 01;19;24;07 - 01;19;25;26 Dave And Tik tok, right? We need Tik. 01;19;25;26 - 01;19;27;00 Athena Tok. We're on Tik Tok. We're on. 01;19;27;00 - 01;19;27;04 Steven To. 01;19;27;10 - 01;19;51;19 Athena That's right. We have to put that on the list here. TikTok. Yeah, absolutely. Yes, we are on TikTok. And you can also just go to zombified dot org. That's right. And find all the things we have, all the links. You can also go on there to buy merch. We have amazing t shirts and stickers and mugs and any that you need for your holiday gifting needs. 01;19;51;19 - 01;19;53;11 Athena Really, it's a one stop shop. 01;19;53;11 - 01;20;00;02 Dave I mean, it is. It's everybody. It's the gift for whoever, you know, who likes receiving gifts. 01;20;00;28 - 01;20;04;20 Steven So absolutely. 01;20;05;02 - 01;20;12;29 Athena And we want to thank you for listening and listening until the very, very end. You know, I like the Dave and I just bantering back and forth. 01;20;12;29 - 01;20;15;19 Dave I mean, we don't we haven't reached the end yet. So it could be. 01;20;15;25 - 01;20;17;25 Steven We could just sit here. Yes, I'll still be. 01;20;17;26 - 01;20;21;07 Dave And then say like one thing to whoever the true fans are. 01;20;22;02 - 01;20;28;28 Athena What are you going to tell the true fans that are still listening right now? 01;20;28;28 - 01;20;29;17 Dave Thanks for joining. 01;20;29;17 - 01;20;29;24 Steven Us. 01;20;31;17 - 01;20;36;15 Athena Thank you for listening to zombified your source for fresh brains. 01;20;36;15 - 01;20;49;06 Speaker 4 You know, it's crazy, but it seems so logical. I can't deny that there's something supernatural with you. 01;20;49;06 - 01;20;53;06 Speaker 5 Makes me happy.