Untitled Hasan Minhaj/Netflix Project (TV) (2018–…): Season 1, Episode 7 - Content Moderation and Free Speech - full transcript

-[crowd chanting]
-[theme music playing]

[siren wailing]

[audience cheering]

Hello!

Thank you, thank you so much! Thank you!

Hello, I'm Hasan Minhaj,
thank you so much.

Welcome to Patriot Act.
Thank you guys so much for coming out.

Yes! This is our last episode of 2018,
we did it! Yes!

[cheering]

Now, look, a lot of people,
they've been asking me,

"Hey, what is it like
having your own TV show?"



And I tell them all the time,
"I don't have a TV show.

I have a web series. This is Netflix."

And I love that this show lives
and dies on the Internet,

and I really do love that
because I'm a child of the Internet.

I grew up with the Internet.
Do guys remember your first computer?

-Yes.
-Okay, I remember mine.

It was a Compaq Presario that we bought
in 1995 at Fry's Electronics.

The monitor was a cinder block.
It was huge.

Taking it from the floor to the desk
felt like you were doing dead lifts.

[grunts]
Like, "I don't want to pull a hamstring."

And it had, just wait for it...

56K dial-up Internet.

AIM, Napster, LimeWire, Winamp,
chat rooms.

The craziest thing anyone would ask you
is A/S/L.



You'd be in a chat room,
and your friend would be like,

"You told them we were two dudes in Davis?

They're gonna find us now!"

Back then,

the Internet represented progress.

It was an exciting new world
that tore down barriers.

Twenty years ago, my father was like,
"I'm going to save up

so my child can be on the Internet.
That is where everything happens."

And now I'm like,

"My child cannot be on the Internet.

That is where everything happens."

I'm trying to keep my baby off
of social media.

We know the big four, you know!

Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook.

Facebook has over two billion users.

That's as big as Christianity
and bigger than Hinduism and Islam.

Although, Facebook's messenger
is probably weaker.

Look, I don't care if you're like,
"Oh, I'm not on social media.

It doesn't affect my life."

Trust me, social media is HPV.
Just because you don't have it...

doesn't mean it doesn't affect you
or someone you know.

Now, look.

If you're not laughing...

you have HPV.

[laughs]

Just the dead stare of like...

These companies profit
off everything we share.

They've stockpiled our data.

We are placing an incredible amount
of trust in them.

But every day, we are learning more
and more why we shouldn't.

Facebook coming under fire this week.

The New York Times with a bombshell piece

about how the social media giant handled
Russian interference.

[woman] Facebook's top executives
not only ignored warning signs

of Russian interference in 2016,

but sought to conceal them
from public view.

This has been a huge story,
but what pisses me off is that for months

Zuckerberg said Facebook couldn't have
influenced the 2016 election,

but later admitted that
126 million Americans

may have seen Russia-linked political ads
on Facebook.

It's like tobacco companies acting like
they didn't know smoking was bad

even after four Marlboro men died
from smoking.

They're like, "Come on, man.
It was all that horseback riding."

Oh, that's what you call lung cancer.

Lung cancer? They must have been smoking
near a microwave.

Facebook is emblematic
of what can go wrong on social media.

That's why tonight,

I want to talk about content moderation
and free speech.

Free speech you already know.

Content moderation is oversight
of the material on the Internet,

and what happens on the Internet
can have real world consequences.

The worst thing on the Internet used
to be Nigerian princes and boner pills.

Now, it's this.

Let's go ahead and go to the report,
Pizzagate is real.

[man] North Carolina man arrested
in DC pizza shop after brandishing a gun.

Swatting and doxxing and cyberstalking.

[man] We have been spreading our memes.
We've been organizing on the Internet.

As you can see today,
we greatly outnumbered the anti-white,

anti-American filth.

What he just said,
is they are taking their fight

from the Internet to the real world,
and that is happening more and more.

Look what happened
to Christine Blasey Ford

the woman who testified
against Brett Kavanaugh.

People have posted
my personal information

and that of my parents online
on the Internet.

This has resulted in additional emails,
calls and threats.

My family and I were forced
to move out of our home.

That is just one prominent example
of someone being doxxed on Twitter,

and there are mounting problems
with Facebook and local communities.

It has repeatedly failed to move quickly
when it comes to harassment.

They use the same excuse I use
with my dentist when it comes to flossing.

I'm like, "I'll do it, Dr. Peroni,
just trust me.

Can we talk about this in six months?"

And social media has also caused
huge problems around the world.

In India and Sri Lanka,
social media has incited racial violence.

In Sri Lanka, where
we've seen an escalation of violence.

The government blocked Facebook,
Instagram, WhatsApp and Viber,

saying that they were instrumental
in spreading and amplifying hate speech.

A 32-year-old man has been lynched
in southern India by a huge mob,

incensed by rumors of a child kidnapping
spread on WhatsApp.

Military personnel in Myanmar use Facebook
as a tool for ethnic cleansing.

This is not just spreading fake news.

Facebook has now turned into a beast

than what it was, what it was
originally intended to be used.

The UN confirmed that Facebook
helped exacerbate genocide in Myanmar.

So even if you delete Facebook
and choose to opt out

and take ownership over your own life,
it doesn't matter.

Facebook shapes how people around
you behave, make decisions, even vote,

and when asked to flag and remove content,

tech companies always seem to defend
their actions the exact same way.

Freedom of expression is one
of our core values.

YouTube's mission is
to give everyone a voice.

From our perspective,
the primary focus is that

every user has paramount rights
to free expression.

That last guy is Twitter's
senior strategist of public policy.

A man named Mr. Pickles.

Now, look. Life is short.

So can we just take a moment
to enjoy members of Congress

saying "Mr. Pickles."

-My name is Nick Pickles.
-Thank you, Mr. Pickles.

So, Mr. Pickles.

-Mr. Pickles.
-Mr. Pickles.

Mr. Pickles.

I wish I was at Twitter
during his job interview.

Like, "Hey, thanks for coming in.
Now, we need someone to be

a serious interface between us
and the US government.

There is only one man for the job,
Pickles!

You're hired!

The First Amendment has always been one
of the ways tech companies

shield themselves from criticism.

Freedom of speech is their superstar
in "Mario Brothers."

It lets them run through anything.
[imitating video game music]

Nazis.

The other way they shield themselves
from criticism

is the Communications Decency Act
or the CDA.

Think of it as their Hylian Shield,
the CDA is the law that gives them cover

from being sued for libel.

Now, I know people are like,
"How could you mix up Mario and Zelda?

Those are two different things."

I don't care,
it's the same Nintendo universe,

and these things are complicated.

The CDA is a law

that dates back to the 1990s
when the Internet was still coming of age.

People really didn't know what it was.

Especially Bryant Gumbel.

That little mark
with the A and then the ring around it.

-At.
-See, that's what I said.

-Katie said she thought it was about.
-Yeah.

What do you write to it like mail?

No, a lot of people use it
and communicate--

I guess they can communicate
with NBC writers and producers.

Allison, can you explain what Internet is?

Oh, yeah, and, Allison, while I have you,
you know that guy Matt who reads the news,

definitely don't go into his office.

Yeah, he's got a button on his desk
that closes the door.

[laughing]

Look, look...
that's objectively creepy, I'm sorry.

Eventually, people started to see
the promise of the Internet.

[woman] From the biggest company
to a guy in his basement,

anyone can have a site
on the World Wide Web.

Soon you'll be able to shop
at your favorite stores

without leaving home.

[man] If you have a strange obsession,
whatever it might be,

there's a place for you on the Internet.

We have someone's page
that's called "Talk to My Cat."

So, whatever you type
is gonna be said to the cat.

[automated voice] Roll over.

See what happened right now.
See, this right here

is the most depressing thing
about comedy.

No matter how hard I try,
nothing I ever write will ever beat...

a cat falling off a desk.

The way you guys exploded.

I'm just like, I should just be Bob Saget

doing America's Funniest Home Videos:
Melanin Edition.

Now, through the '90s,
the Internet was spreading more and more,

and families were logging
onto the Internet,

and that's when
the trouble really started.

[man] Even though the Internet is like
a vast library of information

to learn throughout the world,

parents need to know
what it can bring into their homes.

Oh, the most graphic pornography
that you could ever imagine.

[man] They can look under the word
"Jesus Christ"

and find absolute pornography.

They can go to research,
like, the White House

and find absolute pornography.

Wow.

Associating the White House
with pornography.

Can you imagine?

That's crazy.

The thought of pornography

being piped into every house in America
caused a knee-jerk moral panic.

There is available on the Internet
every kind of pornography

you've ever envisioned
and many you've never thought of.

A site, it had a description "male bears,"

and I looked at it and it was
definitely not of the grizzly bear type.

All right, those aren't even bears.

Those are otters,
and she would know that if she had Google.

The porn freak out led Congress to pass
the 1996 Communications Decency Act,

which tried to restrict Internet porn
with fines and prison time.

But porn wasn't going down
without a fight.

A big victory today for those fighting for
free speech protections on the Internet.

A panel of federal judges blocked
a new law against images like this

on the Global Computer Hookup.

Global Computer Hookup,

sounds like Tinder in the Soviet Union.

It's Global Computer Hookup,
you're like...

"All right, I'll meet some hot KGB girls."

Have you noticed everyone who's tried
to go up against porn loses?

Since the beginning of time,
porn is undefeated-- 82 and 0.

They have never lost--
Remember that line in Jurassic Park?

Where they're like, "Life finds a way."

Fuck that.

Dinosaurs are dead, porn is still here.

Forget life, porn finds a way.
In 1997, the Supreme Court struck down

large portions of the CDA
for violating the First Amendment,

but a critical part of the law survived.
Something called Section 230.

And I know everyone
in Silicon Valley is watching this like,

"Yeah, everyone knows about
Section 230, okay?

I couldn't live without Section 230,
Tim Ferriss or Allbirds."

Now, I'm sorry, but as a sneakerhead,
Allbirds are fucking disgusting."

They are the Kevin Durant of footwear.

They're in Silicon Valley,
tons of people like them

and they are corny as fuck,
and if you get offended by that joke

and Tweet me about it,
you truly are like Kevin Durant.

Do you know who also wears Allbirds?
Paul Ryan.

Look, there in the players tunnel
on the way to repeal health care.

Okay, back to Section 230
of the Communications Decency Act.

Man, I really hope Fallon
doesn't cover this by the time we air.

Section 230...

established that websites relying
on user-generated content

cannot be treated like publishers.

This was a game-changer for the Internet.

Think of it in terms of the magazines
you see on a newsstand.

-You guys remember magazines, right?
-[audience laughs]

It's like Instagram that you could hold.

It's crazy.

Publishers create the content,
The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Cosmo.

Platforms are the newsstands themselves.

They don't publish the material,
but they decide how to arrange it,

and if you walk by and go,
"I don't like Cosmo, okay?

I did everything it said
to get a summer bod,

but my abs are mid-December at best.

I'm suing you."

You cannot successfully sue them.

Without Section 230,
every single social media company

could have been liable
for every single tweet or post.

But the flip side of that is
Section 230 gives platforms

the ability to moderate content
however they see fit.

They arrange the newsstand,
and they can take down whatever they want.

They basically act
like a giant curator of content.

And let's be real,
when it comes to YouTube, Facebook

and other social media platforms,
curation is everything now

because there's so much content.

YouTube says 400 hours of video content
is uploaded every minute.

That's about a century's worth
of video content

added every day and a half.

That is just one platform.

As PewDiePie and Poppy have shown us,

a lot of awful shit can get uploaded
to the Internet.

That is why Section 230 also established
the Good Samaritan Clause,

which basically says tech companies
can take down anything on their sites

that they think is objectionable.

You just can't sue them
as long as they're doing it in good faith,

and they're doing this all the time.

Millions of images and videos
are taken off platforms

when the most awful stuff is caught
by content moderators.

Many social media users just assume
that content moderation is automated.

In reality, there are reportedly

more than 150,000 content moderators
worldwide working today.

Real people, all over the globe,
are screening the most heinous content

and oftentimes suffering
psychological trauma,

and some moderators are paid
as little as $1 an hour,

and by every account, it is a hellish job.

[man] Smitha Patil works
as a content moderator.

She gets through 2,000 photos an hour.

That's 1.6 seconds to decide
if an image is violent, pornographic

or doesn't adhere to community rules.

1.6 seconds, it takes me a full minute
after I wake up to realize

that shirt hanging on my chair
isn't a man trying to kill me.

It's like, "Who are you, Mr. T-shirt?
Oh, we're cool."

But here's the thing
about shitty content online,

it's not all bad for tech companies.

They don't separate between what's good
and bad.

They just look at engagement metrics.

[man] In the first two days
after it was posted on Facebook,

the video of the little boy being beaten
was shared more than 44,000 times.

From Facebook's point of view,
it's the really extreme, really dangerous

form of content that...

attracts the most highly engaged people
on the platform.

Social media companies
don't allow porn porn,

but they are happy
to give you outrage porn.

They know controversial content
generates a lot of engagement

and this is not new.
Every form of media has done this.

If it bleeds, it leads.
Sex sells. We know this.

What is new is the scale.

They made a product that...

was a better tool for advertisers
than anything that had ever come before.

Twitter and Facebook are ad companies.

This isn't about connecting with friends

or finding out which classmates
are Nazi sympathizers.

This is about curating an experience
for maximum growth in ad sales.

Free speech was never on the table.

Even Twitter's CEO, Jackie D, admitted it.

This quote around free speech wing
of the free speech party

was never a mission of the company.

It was never as a descriptor
of the company that we gave ourselves.

It was a joke. [laughs]

Yeah, it was a fucking joke.

Every time I see Jack from Twitter,
it makes me miss Tom from Myspace.

It was a simpler time.

Remember section 230?
It divided companies into two categories.

You're either a platform
or you're a publisher.

That's been the framework.

You're either a tiger or you're a lion,
but social media companies

have become a monstrosity
that we don't have a category for.

They're this weird hybrid, they're ligers.

And if you don't know this,
ligers are real.

They can be up to 12-feet long,

and girls named Brittany
love taking pictures with them.

Okay, this photo pisses me off.
Indians would never do this.

Ever. We would never-- even fictional
Indians would never do this.

In both Life of Pi and The Jungle Book,

Pi and Mowgli are like,
"Yo, I don't trust that tiger at all."

But if The Jungle Book was about Brittany,

she'd be like, "Is that a tiger?" [snarls]

Credits.

Over in two minutes.

That's it.

Now, look. We don't have
meaningful languages or laws for ligers.

They're operating with near immunity.

And what's even more terrifying is
now Facebook has said that they want

to form their own internal Supreme Court

to decide what should
and shouldn't be acceptable speech.

After everything we've learned about
how much they've lied and covered up,

why should we trust them?
With the way things are set up right now,

tech companies are getting all
of the benefits of a platform

and none of the risk of a publisher,
and they use it to their advantage.

Just this summer, Facebook was sued
by an independent app developer

for cutting off access
to Facebook user data,

and in court,
Facebook argued it can do that

because it is a publisher,
and it's protected by the First Amendment.

This is very difficult issue,
and the solutions here aren't simple,

but relying on the good faith
of tech companies to regulate themselves,

that ain't working.

'Cause with the way things are right now,

social media gets to be platform
in the streets

and publisher in the sheets,
and you can't have it both ways.

-This is our last episode of 2018.
-[audience cheering]

This is it.

Now look, I can't say goodbye

without turning to Saudi Arabia,

and I mean that literally
and metaphorically.

Now, when we last left our hero,
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman,

the Saudis were struggling
to explain the disappearance

of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

They said he left their consulate safely.

Then they used a body double to make it
seem like he was alive.

At one point, they were saying that
he died in a fistfight Jackie Chan style.

They went through so many explanations,
the only one they didn't say

was that Khashoggi died
in a free solo rock climbing accident.

They'd be like, "We all know...

it was Khashoggi's dream
to summit El Capitan."

"But isn't El Capitan
in Yosemite National Park?"

"No, El Capitan is in our consulate
in Istanbul."

According to news reports,

the CIA concluded that MbS
personally ordered the killing

In response, Germany, Denmark and Finland
all stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia.

I know what you're thinking.

"Denmark and Finland were selling arms
to Saudi Arabia?"

That'd be like if your grandparents came
up to you and were like, "Listen, um...

we're no longer touring
with the Black Eyed Peas."

You'd be like...

"Nana, you were touring
with the Black Eyed Peas?

Does Taboo talk?" "No, he doesn't."

European countries halting arm sales
is really just a gesture

because Saudi Arabia buys the majority
of its weapons from the United States,

but now some members of Congress are
saying our government should take a stand.

If you want to keep MbS, that's
your decision to make, Saudi Arabia.

As long as you make that decision,
you're gonna have a hard time with me.

There's a new sheriff in town.

[laughs] Okay. All right!

How many times do you think
Lindsey Graham practiced that

in front of the mirror?

He's like, "Come on, Lindsey, let's go.
Hey, Lindsey, come on. Hey.

There's a new sheriff in town.

No, that's not it.

Come on, man. You're going on Hannity.
Hey, man. There's a new--

Hey, Mohammed, there's a new sher--

Mohammed. New--

Hey, Mohammed, sheriff time.

Hey, Mohammed. Hey, Al--
Sheriff time. God damn it!"

But Lindsey Graham's Wild West cosplay
didn't go very far.

[man] In an official statement peppered
with exclamation points,

the president wrote,
"It could very well be that

the Crown Prince had knowledge
of this tragic event.

Maybe he did, and maybe he didn't."

Trump is so ready to give MbS the benefit
of the doubt because of the arms deal,

but the benefits of that deal
aren't even clear.

You may remember
a thing we did here last week

about Donald Trump
and the Saudi arms deal

that was originally going to create
40,000 jobs,

but then every time Trump talked about it,
he jacked up that number.

It's 450,000 jobs.

It's 500,000 jobs.

600,000 jobs, maybe more than that.

I think it's over a million jobs.

He's saying the arms deal will help create
over one million jobs.

Reuters says it will only create hundreds.

So let me get this straight,
our range is from hundreds to a million.

Trump is boosting numbers
like he's LeBron James in South Beach.

-[man] Not one championship...
-Not two.

-LeBron, tell us about that.
-Not two, not three, not four, not five,

not six, not seven.

It was two. It was exactly two.

The Thunder and the Spurs.

The potential jobs are
at defense contracting firms

like Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

They supply weapons to Saudi Arabia
that are being used,

you guessed it, in Yemen.

And now, Yemen is at risk
of mass starvation and famine.

An estimated 85,000 children have already
died of starvation and disease.

I know it's bleak,
but there's been some progress

since the last time we talked about Yemen.

A few hours ago,
the leader of the Houthi rebels

announced that he's ready
for a ceasefire

if the Saudi-led coalition
also wants peace.

But even that progress comes at a cost.

While there have been calls
for a ceasefire,

that isn't as good as it sounds
for Yemeni citizens.

When we hear ceasefire, we may think
the worst coming to an end,

but I think for a lot of the combatants,
when they hear ceasefire,

it's kind of this urge to get things in
to maximize gains.

And by "get things in," he means
Saudi has increased its bombing

since talk of a ceasefire began.

Come on, Saudi Arabia.

You don't have to treat the ceasefire
like it's last call at Señor Frog's.

There will be other places to bomb,
I promise!

Look, I realize America has been complicit
in humanitarian crises before.

All presidents do evil shit.

But at least they're vague about it.

This is just blatantly evil shit
on White House letterhead.

In his official statement,
Trump straight-up says

that it's about money and oil.

That's it. Dick Cheney must be like...

"Wait, we could've just said it?

Do you know how long...

it took us to come up with
'They hate our freedom'?

We work-shopped that shit for months."

Now, look, we're about to take a break
for the holidays,

which unfortunately for my family means

I'm just gonna be showing them
PowerPoint presentations

until my wife takes away my screens.

So while we're off
and my family is furious,

here's an organization you can donate to.

Thank you guys so much for watching
these first seven episodes.

It truly has been a dream come true,
and I cannot wait to come back in 2019,

when we'll probably use
Lil Wayne's neck tattoos

to explain how Sri Lanka fell
into a Chinese debt trap.

That's our show. Good night.

[cheering]

[theme music playing]