Facebook fails a civil rights audit, college campuses will be "mini-Wuhans", and can the Trump admin ban TikTok?

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Hi, everyone.

This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network.

I'm Kara Swisher.

And I'm Scott Galloway.

Oh, my God.

Now I've been getting texts and tweets from people telling me now I have to say you're a genius because

your idea, the Twitter was maybe looking a subscription service.

And now apparently they're looking at it.

The stock jumped.

A new job listing is looking for engineers to work on a subscription platform called Griffin.

Griffin, Griffin, whatever.

And Wall Street loves this.

So I just literally don't know how I'm going to live with you.

I think it's really going to be bad.

Let me between Carol.

What was that?

Could you repeat that?

I'm sorry.

I don't get your meaning.

What are you talking about?

I feel that I am going to have to tell you you're smart today, and it's a real disappointment for me.

So tell me.

I'm a German Shepherd.

Tell me how you came.

I'm not a peerbreeder.

I have this feeling you have inside information you're paying for.

Now, I don't know why I feel this, but tell me how you came up with this.

Besides,

I'll just say one thing, Carol.

One of my mentors or someone I look up to is a woman named Cindy Gallup.

Yeah, I just think she's great.

She's amazing.

Smart, courageous, thoughtful woman.

And she has a saying I love: and that is the best way to predict the future

is to make it.

Oh, God, stop it.

Stop it.

No, seriously.

Why did you go with this one?

This is, we'll see if it happens, by the way.

Like, let's see.

It'll be interesting to do.

And I think you feel like it's their only way out, essentially.

This is this is obvious.

This is a yeah, this is a platform that has tremendous loyalty, has a good product,

but

the business model of ad-supported media means it's like being in the business of scale at retail.

It means there's really only room for one or two players to pursue that business model, meaning everybody else has to go niche.

And it's just obvious when you look at Twitter, and I think this is true of Pinterest and Snap, too.

An ad-supported model just doesn't, they just don't have the scale for an ad-supported model.

And

you have with Twitter is so much value, surplus value being recognized by a small number of people.

If you have 17 million tweets, you're not going to pay $100 a month.

You'll pay $1,000 a month.

Yep, yep, yep.

And so

this just seemed, you know,

it's almost as if the only thing could be more obvious than this would be predicting, say, that.

I don't know, a CEO had two jobs, was a CEO of two companies, and you predicted that over time that he would have to step down.

That's going to happen this year, too.

Oh, you keep saying that.

You keep being wrong about that.

No, I'm keeping being wrong.

wrong that one you're just going to keep saying until you're right correct is that my emotions i understand i've lost control of my emotions oh listen spock you know i mean you when you when you're right you'll be like i was so right this you know i was oh you know i'll take credit yeah like that one i'm not going to give you when he retires at the age of 78 you'll see i see i told you he was

i'm not going to give you that one that one i'm not going to give you at that time because it's been too long but if you do it near around when he's doing it i certainly will um speaking of ceos uh by the way let me give you another one ppp loan data you and i and stephanie Ruhl all talked about the fraud that's going to go in it.

Like the names are just incredible.

A lot of Trump-related people, a lot of people who are not deserving of our taxpayers' money, one would imagine.

And so this is, you know, as you noted, this is going to be an ongoing fraud investigation by reporters for years to come, I think, and how it was abused and used, possible books and things like that.

Well, you know, you know what, who's going to be?

So first off, there's going to be a term you're going to hear a lot more of, and that's pandemic profiteers.

Oh.

So

not just the masked people or the people who hoard.

Well, this will be the new ground zero because in World War II, whereas citizens were asked to invest and sacrifice

in this battle against a foe,

as is everything we do, we were using it as an excuse to transfer money from the poor to the rich.

And what you're going to find out here is that HQ for pandemic profiteering,

Sandhill Road.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You're going to see, and I don't want to say the names of individual venture capitalists because there was a great article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday about it.

And a lot of those guys are disputing that the Wall Street Journal got accurate information.

But you have venture capital firms that are raising billions of dollars

of funds.

Yeah.

And yeah, you wrote about yourself and they're cashing these checks at small companies.

And all this has done is said,

this isn't a cupcake bakery with someone who needed to hold on to their four employees and is fine now.

Right.

This is a, most of these companies you're going to find were growing.

Sure, they hit a speed bump.

But all this did was preserve the dilution of the shareholders and the founders or put more or put more cash on the balance sheet.

Right.

And it's just, it's just,

people, a lot of people are going to eat a cold lunch when the word comes out that they have taken this money.

Yep, I agree.

I agree.

I agree.

And I think this is one of the issues.

A lot of people felt they should or they shouldn't and this and that, but these people can raise money anytime.

This is not just them.

It's like, it's all over the place.

And of course, you know, I can see why people would do it, especially if they had no shame.

Like, why not?

It's like belly up to the money bar.

But it really is.

It just sort of, the way that this has been conducted is so open to fraud.

They sort of like open the bank doors and said, don't take money.

Like, don't take it wrongly.

Take what you need, but don't take it wrongly.

And so that to me is just, again, it's another indictment of the Trump administration and their inability to run anything, including this corona.

They've now had a second bite at this coronavirus apple, and they seem to, you know, they just can't do it.

They can't fix the situation even when they have chance after chance after chance.

It's really quite depressing.

Yeah, and you are going to find, I think you will find that a lot of the money got to the right place.

But I think of that as the hamburger being thrown at the guard dogs while you rob the bank.

Yeah.

They're going to wallpaper it over with these emotional stories.

It's going to be something like 10% of the applicants got 80 or 90% of the funds.

And we're going to find that somewhere between a third and two-thirds of those really didn't need it.

And oh, by the way, all these people who talk such a big game about capitalism and the government should never bail anyone out are going to talk about how effective this program was.

Right.

And it's just, it's just, it is pandemic profiteering.

Pandemic.

We're going to see a ton of companies get shamed and decide to send the money back.

But it's, it's, this is, anyways, I think this is the only thing that passes for bipartisan support these days is reckless spending.

Reckless spending.

And also, you know, just speaking of recklessness,

there was a story today in the New York Times about Robin Hood and how I sent you, I tweeted at you,

that

we talked about this, is that the predatory nature of this company, and I think they were, people on the service were 88 times more likely to do dangerous things than Schwab or other services, which are more responsible.

You know, and I, you know,

options, yeah, exactly.

And it was really, it was another indictment.

You know, not nobody, everyone shrugs their shoulders, but the one fact in it that I thought was at the moment was when Ashton Kutcher, who's an investor who I know and I like personally, but was talking about how it's like gambling.

And then he had to go sort of walk his quote back saying, I didn't mean to say it was like gambling, but they were joking about the idea.

But to joke, this is something where people who work for these companies actually do know the predilection to be gambling.

They know what they're doing.

And also, they know that people have a predilection for thinking it, but like gambling, and they continue to do what they're doing.

They better clean themselves up at Robinhood.

They really need to clean themselves up, but that makes them less valuable.

Karen, or care, let's be let's be fair.

They've committed to hiring an option specialist.

Let's be, you know, young men, mentally ill young men, including direct evidence that someone has killed themselves after seeing the app and they've decided to

hire an option specialist.

The actual execution of options contracts and share purchases is almost zero cost.

And sometimes even the brokerages will pay for flow.

And that is the flow of the orders.

And the story explained it well.

I thought they explained it really well.

Yeah, and to your credit and to the, do you know who get who gets paid the most for flow?

Who?

Robinhood.

Robin Hood.

Why?

Because.

Yes, they get more.

That was in there.

Yeah.

These brokers love those contracts.

Why?

Because the people buying those contracts, in their view, are the most likely to buy stupid contracts that are overpriced and lose money.

So the entire market appears to know.

that this is a bunch of kids driving

the same thing.

It feels like the housing crisis.

Like, here, let's give you a house you can't afford and

let you have a mortgage.

It just feels that same cynicism.

It pervades.

Speaking of cynicism, let's get two big stories.

An independent audit of Facebook that Facebook itself engaged to have done found that decisions at the company have led to, quote, setbacks for civil rights.

I know this comes as a shock to you, Scott.

The report was conducted over two years and asserts the company isn't prepared to address discrimination on the platform that may affect the upcoming election.

Meanwhile, civil rights leaders from the NAACP, the Anti-Defamation League, and other groups, Color of Change, we're going to have Rashad on Pivot on Monday, and other groups met with Mark Zuckerberg and Cheryl Sandberg to talk to the company leadership about fixing the way the platform moderates hate speech.

The meeting did not go so well.

Those groups brought 10 demands, which they have brought before, as Rashad has noted today, on Stephanie Rule.

We missed you today, Scott.

And after the meeting was done, they said Facebook wasn't willing to act on almost any of them, and they have done this.

They have been on this

ride before.

Facebook will hire a C-suite civil rights position, which will be one of the 10 demands.

They don't have a timeline yet when the position will be filled.

We're going to have Rashad on Friend of Pivot in next week's show.

And Cheryl Sandberg has suddenly popped up out of nowhere with her first comment since the advertising boycott started against the company, although I understand she's been very active behind the scenes going to them.

She wrote a post on Facebook that said, we have to, what do you think, Scott, get better at finding and removing hateful content.

So Scott, thoughts?

I'm not worried because Ms.

Sandberg is committed to doing better around the issue.

So

I will sleep well tonight.

And she has said we need to do better and that they're not taking action here because of the advertising boycott.

No, no, no, that's not how they roll.

They're doing this, and this is an exact quote, because care, because it's the right thing to do.

So Ms.

Sandberg, we need to do better and Facebook doing something because it's the right thing to do.

Check and check.

I mean, do these people believe this shit when they say it?

I don't know.

At this point, do they literally believe it when they say it themselves?

I told Rashad to stop going to the meetings.

I was like, just send, like, just don't.

Like, it's just, they're going to tell you.

He's like, we said this the last meeting and they said the same thing.

And I'm like, welcome to my world.

It's the same.

I typed the same column over and over, like 10, 10 columns.

I counted them saying this going back two years and way before that at Recode.

You know what I mean?

It's just as,

yeah, yeah.

what do we do?

Nuts.

What do you think?

Have you heard anything or what's been the response?

I've heard, you know, they're victims.

They're victims like they are on Clubhouse or whatever the fuck that is.

And they're victims.

And this is, we're being too hard on them.

And their stock is not being affected.

And, you know, Mark made that comment, which I think is pretty egregious to his employees.

He said,

usually I tend to think that someone goes out there and threatens to do something that actually kind of puts you in a box where in some ways it's even harder to do what they want because now it looks like you're capitulating.

It's fine to look like you're capitulating, Mark.

Oh, God.

I just want to like literally, now I can't do it because it looks like I'm a wimp.

Well, okay.

And then he said that advertisers will come back, which they probably will.

The stock is doing well.

Of course, their new oversight board won't be ready until late fall.

I've written about that.

Oh my God.

Talk about, that has got to be like, that has got to be the lamest flexible.

I have been, and it's all Europeans and these very impressive

people you would like at a dinner party.

they're dinner they have been appointed to the Facebook oversight board it's like well okay good luck with that that's there's you know what is really impressive if you wanted to find a group of some of the most impressive people in the world with some of the best reputations in the world yeah

the

one decent cohort of the most impressive people in the world is the people who have left Facebook's board early.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Susan Desmond Hellman, Ken Chennault, Erskine Ball.

These are like, if you were to say, how do I build a group of like the highest integrity, most thoughtful people, it would be people who have said, I need to get off this board early.

I cannot be here.

I am not comfortable with what's going on.

I do not want to work with this individual.

They can speak out.

They like to do the silence thing.

It's sort of like letting like a bad

someone, you know, just graduate when they can't read.

It's just so ridiculous.

What I want to do is we should lure them all into like a room for something.

And then we lock the door and we say, you're saying what happened.

Yeah, I think it's called kidnapping.

I know, but I'm just

like, I would like them just to like say, just say.

Just do what we want.

But here's the thing, the real one.

Say Reed, say Susan, say Aaron.

They have a different approach to life than you or me.

They've decided that they never want to be rude or disrespectful to people.

They have an entirely different approach.

One of the reasons they're so likable and have such incredible

reputations is they don't do show like that.

You know what we need?

We need them to go Lincoln Project on this.

That's what all I'm saying.

Like, we're going to talk go lincoln project they are killing it by the way i'm scared when the next election when they're back on the other side they're so good at these ads that you know these are these ex well they're still republicans but their ads are fantastic

um and so i would like them to go lincoln project if you don't mind you know i'd like them to like say what happened and and you know write a book like i don't know do a mattis i don't whatever like oh god geez there you go you've had it i've had it it's like i'm writing another column it's like i was was like, my column starts this week.

I'd like to write about lemonade or maybe Scott's idea about Twitter,

but Facebook, once again, has, you know, weighed in.

What is going to, look, we keep predicting, but do you imagine once this election ends and if Biden wins, that's when they have to change, presumably, because that's when regulators are going to come call in with briefcases, et cetera, correct or not.

Yeah, I think you're right.

I think it's fairly pedestrian.

People, when people ask me what's going to happen around antitrust or the breakup of regulation, I'm like, well, tell me what happens in November.

It just, it really does come down to that.

I think there will be some movement, even if Trump is re-elected, there'll be some movement because enough people have kind of zeroed in on this and are sick of the lies.

Yeah.

But I think Twitter is going to double down.

I've heard Twitter is going to double down on what they're doing.

I think they're going to be a contrast.

I think they're going to be in big contrast to Facebook.

And what's really interesting, I think they should.

I think it's a good look for them.

It's an opportunity.

And it's also the right thing to do.

And so it'll be interesting to see how far they go down the line because we had rashad just now and stephanie rules we were you know how facebook is doing this free speech thing it's not free speech it's hate speech it's i i decided i found it a perfect example then we're going to get to the next story but it's as if you you said yes the meat is tainted but everyone should be able to have all meats all meats should be available to people well we need to give voice to ground chucks ground chuck that's tainted that will probably kill you like whatever it is whatever happened to it even if it was put in here by the russians to kill us we should let that meat speak And even, look, even if it's,

you should have the right to discover via gastrointestinal disease that it's rotten meat.

You deserve that, right?

You do.

It's great.

That's really, thanks, Mark.

Appreciate it.

Anyway, we were horrified in any case.

And let me just, before we finish this, you saw the Harper's letter.

We're going to talk about it later, I think.

Oh, yeah.

You and I are going to disagree on that.

We are.

Come on.

Just read the criticisms.

It's 100%.

They're 100% right.

There have been several excellent criticisms of it.

Again, another, you know who did one?

Mike Mike Masnick, who was on our show.

There's a difference between free speech and freedom from consequence of your speech.

Thank you.

All right.

You should read the Mike Masnick piece.

I'm going to quote from it in a second.

Yeah, I want to be honest, though.

If they had called me and asked me to sign it, I would have signed it.

I think there's a dangerous gestalt in our family.

No, there isn't.

It is not our biggest problem.

We're going to get into it later.

No, it's not.

Left-wing and rich, platformed people not being able to say whatever they want is not our biggest problem.

I am so sorry to tell you, give you the news.

Anyway, Scott, let's go on a quick break.

We'll come back to talk about the possible ban on TikTok in the United States and listener, man.

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He kept saying, no, no, no, I'm in the hospital now, but next week I'll be ready for the show.

no charlie's sober he's gonna tell you the truth how do i present this with a class i think we're past that charlie we're past that yeah somebody call action aka charlie sheen only on netflix september 10th

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Okay, Scott, we're back.

And actually, news breaking: the Supreme Court has ruled that Trump's tax returns may be turned over to the grand jury in the New York case.

And in the case of Congress, they sent it down to the lower court to figure out what to do.

But it did, it essentially said he's not immune, which has been his argument.

We'll get to that in a minute, if it'll have any implications on us, but it's an interesting story.

But bad news for quarantine, Gen Z, and wine moms: the United States is weighing a ban of TikTok.

While they're over here dealing with the taxes, the Chinese social media app.

This week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went on Fox News to tell Laura Ingram, which

that's a sentence, that the U.S.

is very seriously looking at the ban of the app and warned that people should only download the app if you want your private information in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.

President Trump confirmed that his administration was considering the ban and reiterated that China should be held accountable for COVID-19.

In response, a TikTok spokesperson said, quote, the company is led by an American CEO with hundreds of employees and key leaders across safety, security, product, and public policy here in the U.S.

Now TikTok is bulking up its lobbying team as the U.S.

government intensifies its scrutiny of the platform.

Meanwhile, last week, India, TikTok's largest market, banned the app.

I don't think he can ban the app.

So let's talk about this.

What do you think?

We thought that it was going to be spun off anyway and become a U.S.

company, the U.S.

arm at least.

So obviously, this is a political move by that fatuous idiot, Mike Pompeo.

But

that's what I call him at home.

What do you think about this?

What do you think is going to happen?

Because this is a super popular app and a very good app.

Well,

so I do think it comes down to whether or not there's evidence they're a security threat and whether that the information is being used and covert intelligence for because the relationship between Chinese companies and the ruling party there is pretty tight.

And

so

I just don't, the problem is you can't trust when the Secretary of State used to come out and say, this is a national security risk, they would show up with receipts and data and you would believe them.

And now you just don't, you don't, you don't know.

And it might be a security threat.

These actions might be warranted, or it might be just more xenophobic decisions that hurt our economy and give us no leg to stand on when we call for these markets to buy our products.

So what's next?

The Chinese played a long game.

They're going to do something probably against what my guess would be against apple and they're gonna say look if you want to play this game

we can play this game but i i don't at this point at this point i'm reserving judgment because i don't know what the evidence is that they're in fact a national security threat

i found that it's it's a complex issue just like you're saying this is a nuanced and complex issue but what the trump administration as usual is doing is throwing a hammer to make music like throwing a hammer at a piano to make music i don't know what

it is it's like ashen ashen it's ashen and ashen you'll see throwing a hammer at a piano to make music.

You know what?

Sometimes you can be sort of right, and they're not sort of right here.

They're not.

They don't know what they're.

They're just doing it in order to call attention away from their own crappy things.

And they're not focusing in on what Facebook's doing either, by the way.

You know, maybe

the Facebook impact, the same, you know, it's they're not the same as China, obviously.

And this is a concern.

We should be concerned about all apps from a country like China, obviously.

But the fact of the matter is, there's ways to figure out if that is safe.

If we do move these servers to this country, if it is a separate company, we do have an, they did hire an American, a top Disney executive, a CEO.

What's interesting was happening in India, and I think India is doing it again today around Reddit and some others,

is the is they banned the app.

Now, India has much more control over the ability.

I don't think Trump has any control here that works.

And, you know, it could be part that he's mad at the TikTok people from ruining his Tulsa rally, which is not even proven,

or whatever.

It's just, and then he can blame them for coronavirus.

If you notice, he put coronavirus in here.

I think it'd be interesting.

I'd love to talk to Kevin Mayer about their strategy here, but they certainly are going to slap back.

And it is an opportunity for Instagram and Snapchat to

move into the space.

But I got to tell you, I was on TikTok the other day.

I actually use a burner phone to use it.

Let me just say it's fantastic.

Like the algorithmic, it really is good.

You get drawn in there.

And people.

I have a burner phone.

I have a burner phone.

I know.

You're a saucy little mission.

I'm a saucy miss.

I'll call you on my burner phone sometime.

But what I think is really interesting about it is that it's really

away from the Chinese issue.

It's so much better than all the others.

It is this algorithmic way that they bring you things you like.

That's one.

Two, it is so creative.

People are so creative on that.

Every day there's another, there was one of two couples jumping into shoes over the course of their relationship that was just wonderful.

There was a kid who was flipping, becoming different action stars.

It's It's so good.

The people are really being very creative on it.

And so that's sort of amazing.

And of course, there's things that are like

there's now a rise in the bad parts.

And so the question is, how well will they, you know, control, say, anti-vax stuff, et cetera, et cetera, where it goes?

Because you won't see it because

it won't come up to you.

So

there could be a whole dirty part of TikTok, whether it's anti-vax or racism that they need to pay attention to.

Because, again, you won't see it it necessarily.

It's off in other areas.

So I just, it's a really complex issue, but this is typical of the Trump administration to wait in here like a hand-handed politically motivated, corrupt people that they are.

It's TikTok and Huawei who become sort of the poster child for who we go after.

And at least in the cybersecurity community, supposedly the threat that each represents to national security, they say, at this point, is hypothetical.

But at the same time,

China figured out a way to kick out Facebook and Google when they wouldn't, when they wouldn't, you know,

when behavior, even for Facebook and Google, they couldn't stomach it.

Yeah, agreed.

So, you know, I think you can argue both sides.

You can really argue both sides.

But it's just like the executive order around 230.

It's ridiculous.

It's like, this is not the way to do it.

And it misses the opportunity to really actually do something and do nuanced, important.

You know, I listen, I give speeches about China.

And every time someone from China stands up and says, I'm xenophobic, because I'm like, listen, this country is really winning on lots of.

You're like, I have a burner phone.

I have a burner.

Call me on my burner phone.

No, but

I point out, like, because I had a really interesting talk with an admiral who was talking about their cyber capabilities in the military, and it's really frightening.

At the same time, what the hell?

I mean, I just don't want these people.

Like, I don't want them running the coronavirus thing.

I don't want them running this because it's too important.

And they'll screw it up in some way and then get a payoff from China because who knows, you know, where they're putting their money and stuff like that.

Anyway,

again, we'll find out now that the tax returns are out.

Yay.

They're not going to get out to you and I, but they're going to a grand jury.

In any case, let's take a listener question, shall we?

Let's do it.

You've got mail.

Hi, Karen Scott.

Thanks for taking my question.

This is Alina from New York.

My husband and I love listening to your podcast.

I have a brother who's planning to go into NYU as an undergrad in the fall, and I'm actually an alum of NYU myself.

So we're in the middle of a pandemic, and clearly the traditional college experience has gone out the window.

You can probably imagine my shock when I read that NYU is actually raising tuition by nearly 3% starting in the fall.

What's going on?

Even with rising costs associated with COVID, I find it hard to believe that there is no potential savings that could translate to lower tuition costs at colleges.

Thanks, and I'd love your thoughts.

So I think that question's for you, Kara.

That question's for you.

I have this question for you.

What the hell with the 3% rise?

Secondly,

they haven't said anything.

Like, nobody knows.

And now, Harvard announced they would not be inviting students back to campus, I think, or they're doing it remotely.

And some campuses are having...

Yeah.

But some people are having students on campus,

but doing it remotely to protect the professors, which is kind of interesting.

There's all kinds of ways.

There's like juniors and juniors and freshmen show up and then seniors and sophomores.

I don't know how they decide that.

I think it should be juniors and sophomores.

I mean, freshmen and sophomores, whatever.

In any case, there's all kinds of things.

What is going on there at NYU?

Given I am also, thank you so much for noting this.

What do you think is going to happen?

This is your bailiwick.

This is your wheelhouse.

So, and to be clear, I don't speak for NYU, and I'm not privy to these decisions, although I did have a call with this incredibly impressive guy, Chancellor Block, who's the chancellor of the university that receives the most applications in the world.

Do you know what university that is, Kara?

What?

What?

Tell me.

UCLA.

Okay, so first off, to answer her direct question, what are we doing regarding raising the prices 3%?

Simple.

We're continuing to prey on the hopes and dreams of middle-class households

where a

conflation of self-aggrandizement and arrogance has led us to believe that our lack of productivity, our lack of accountability,

and an inability to recognize basic concepts like ROI and cost management has resulted in more debt than credit card debt.

And it's absolutely, at this point,

it is morally wrong.

So we continue to do that, but that's nothing different.

Let's talk about the pandemic.

The switch part of the bait and switch is now full underway.

And that is now first universities were making these bold strident statements saying we look forward to welcoming you back.

It's our national obligation, said the Brown president, which is Latin for parents, send in your deposits now.

Because if you don't send in your deposits that we have expected and received exactly the same amount, plus 4% every year for the last 40 years, we'll be in financial crisis because our costs are fixed and we can't variabilize them down.

So it was a lot of consensual hallucination between the finance departments, the presidents and parents that fall was actually going to happen.

Well, spoiler alert, and I hate to tell you this, and I've been saying it for two months.

There will be no in-person classes.

We are not going to stick a bunch of average age 55 tenured professors in rooms with windows that don't open with people from the four corners of the earth such that we could infect them and send them back.

The super spreaders in the U.S.

right now, theoretically, theoretically, are far-right Republican governors and university presidents who are even entertaining the notion that we're going to bring people to areas of concentration, young people who are super spreaders, who have proven to be super spreaders, and then expect that they will maintain these ridiculous protocols that we're doing all these task forces on the moment they leave campus.

I agree.

I agree.

So we're moving to the switch phase.

We'll say, well, we didn't realize what was going on.

So we're going to continue to have some classes in person, and they call them studios and labs.

You know, if you're, if you're majoring in the tuba or you're in pottery or something or you're in chemistry lab.

The reality is they will, that will not happen either.

So all of this has been a big wrap.

It's like, I just, you know, it's not quite a business.

I know.

This is, it opens the possibility to students who couldn't afford room and board.

Now, would you send your student to now, would NYU do something?

You don't have any knowledge about it, like have the students be there and then take remote classes?

Is there any point to that?

That's where this is headed, is that they're trying to say, all right,

we're not going, you can still have the campus college experience, and you, young man and family, or young woman and family, have to make a decision around the risk you're willing to take.

And maybe we reconfigure the dorms.

Maybe we have the freshman class show up for fall and the sophomore class show up for the spring semester.

But you try and distance off campus and you can do your remote learning,

not in the class, and have sort of the

college experience and still take your classes and maybe still go to the lawn, which has been taped off for distancing.

But here's the problem, Kara, and I hate to say this out loud.

There are so many scenarios that could just go really wrong.

What happens in small college towns if their healthcare systems get overwhelmed?

Also, I was thinking that, and then there's no cafeteria ability or things like that or whatever.

I mean, it's like New York.

It goes to not distance.

Yes, that's why you go to college.

You go to college to not distance.

And the notion that we aren't setting ourselves up for these little mini Wuhans all over the most charming charming little cities in America, it's just no one wants to be honest about the fact that just as sports has taken a hit, just as movie theater is taking place.

It's closing down to sports, for sure.

You are going to have to close these campuses down enough already.

It's just, we all want our 19-year-olds out of our basement.

All the 19s in the world feel cheated.

But here's the bottom line.

Campuses cannot be the new super spreaders.

And it's.

I like that.

That's like that.

Campuses cannot be the new super spreaders.

I feel like that's a t-shirt we should have.

And by the way, if we had spent a fraction of the time focused on how to decrease the delta between offline and online learning through an amalgam of small and big tech, as we have spent on these ridiculous task forces trying to come up with protocols to give ourselves the illusion of security and safety, we would have already massively improved the online experience and we would have come out of this process in fighting shape.

But you know what's happening?

What?

This is going to have so many implications.

So my class is usually 160 kids, but since it's online and since the kids are angry because they're spending $7,000 to take 12 12 Zoom classes, they've said, Scott, and I'm bragging right now, can you expand your enrollment?

So great.

So I'm teaching 400 kids.

So you're not only going to have the 2080 rule where 20% of the professors are educating 80%, you're going to have the 590 rule at most campuses.

And then all of a sudden, the administration and alumni and donors are going to go, why do we have 190 faculty when 11 of you are educating 80% of the students?

So

this is what is happening here, nothing but delay and obfuscation and arm folding from people who realize the currency of power and lack of accountability, specifically tenured professors and bloated administrators, are getting in the way of progress here.

I agree with you.

Although I really would like my son to play beer pong.

Frankly, I should have made him apply to Trump.

It's a tragedy.

But he'll be back.

Yes, he'll be back.

He'll be abusing alcohol, getting his heart broken in no time.

He was a nice girlfriend.

Listen to me.

I should have made him go to the Sorbonne.

That's it.

But we couldn't get to France either.

I'd have to sneak him into France.

You could call me on your burner phone about the family.

I should have made him.

One of my nephews went to St.

Andrews.

I should have made him do that, but here we are.

But Harvard and MIT are suing the Trump administration for banning foreign students from taking online courses this fall.

This visa thing.

What is they have to move to another school if they can't live there?

It's so strange.

What do you make of that?

So this is my prediction.

And I miss his question.

We're going to get questions later, but give me your thoughts.

Well, this is the most underreported story in America right now because if you think about this, people say, well, it's a xenophobic movie.

First off, just how ridiculous is it?

Okay, you can have a student visa, but if you get some of it online, if you use email, that's fine.

But if that email starts including online courses and we have an opportunity to send you home in some sort of xenophobic trope, okay, all online classes, you're now an illegal aid.

I mean, it just, this decision makes absolutely no sense.

And you know why they're doing this, Kara?

Stephen Millard is watching.

Well, in addition, no,

the kind of free opportunity to be racist with purchase is just a gift here.

It's just sort of an added bonus for them, a chance to be more bigoted.

The reason they are doing this, and it has not been reported and I don't understand why, is that if you were to look at if you were to look at the bluest states in the union, the ones that produce the most harmful intellectual property, the ones that have the most reason to bait, demonstrating

what a travesty and the amount of disease, death, and disability, the incompetence of the administration has levied upon our union, the bluest states in in the nation

are college towns.

And they are neutering college towns because here's the dirty secret.

At NYU, 28% of our students are international.

They pay full freight.

They're about 50% of our cash flow.

Donald Trump and his administration have gone into the neon bluest regions in America and he has neutered them.

He is going after their cash flow.

This is like salt on steroids.

Everyone said salt is nothing but retribution against high-tax blue states.

This is that times 10.

They don't have much time.

Why do this when they have so little time?

It's all going to be turned over.

It's all going to be turned back.

Like, you know, the first, if Biden wins, about half of his administration will be like turning over things like this or like getting like, we're rejoining who, we're redoing this, we're redoing that.

I mean, really.

So why do it?

Why are you cutting off your kids' credit cards?

This is, this is, this is real.

This is the international students.

At every university, another game, we talk about, we brag about that we have students represented on each state and we have students from 28 countries.

And we say we have international students for diversity.

That's bullshit.

International students are some remarkable ones, but for the most part, they're the children of rich kids, are exceptional kids, usually from India.

But we say it's for diversity, but they don't, they pay full freight.

They're really, they're typically the only ones on campus that are paying absolute 100% tuition.

Everybody else, at school like Princeton, the actual cost that students pay has actually gone down the last 20 years because of financial aid.

But the international students very rarely get any sort of financial aid unless they're here for PhDs or something like that.

So this is going, you know, you say follow the money.

This is the Trump administration financially neutering the most liberal towns in America.

This is fascinating.

This is fascinating.

This is true.

You're right.

But I don't think it's going to last.

That's the only thing is like, why do you think it's going to last?

It's going to get turned over.

You know, they'll just drop it.

Everything's going to be dropped, all this stuff.

And then Bill Barr is going to try to join a corporation and nobody will have him.

And, you know, a couple of these people will say, we didn't like him.

If he, this is if he loses, right?

So, and they'll all go, oh, we really were against him.

And then either they'll, we'll forgive them or we'll be like, go fuck yourself, the kind of thing.

That's really how it's going to go.

But they're going to overturn quite a few of these things, I would say.

That's what I would say would happen.

You know, and then, you know, and then President Kamal Harris is going to take everybody down.

Take them down.

That's what she's going to do.

Wait, so give me your rant on this Harper's letter on how and how.

Why don't we do that during predictions and then we will?

We shall.

All right, Scott, one more quick break.

We'll be back for predictions.

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Okay, Scott, I have to admit it.

You're on fire these days.

You're very smart.

I can't, I can't.

Every day, I just literally am like,

I honestly go, I go, oh, he was writing again.

And I better lucky to be good.

And I'm happy for the show.

And then at the same time, I'm like, oh, he's going to be insufferable.

So, nonetheless, we write about lemonade.

You were right about Twitter.

You've just been right a lot.

You've been quite a lot.

And I want a prediction from you.

And we will talk at the end about this Harper's situation.

I will read you some tweets that I tweeted.

But go ahead.

Tell me your prediction.

My prediction is twofold.

We've already mentioned it.

We're going to find out that the amount of funding or bailout money that well-funded venture-backed and PE-backed startups is going to be just

frightening.

And it's going to be, I think, one of the scandals coming out of this.

So I think that that's coming.

And the second is we're going to see small college towns across America, which have for the last 40 years been these incredibly affluent, robust

centers of cultural enrichment, but also quite frankly, great mini economies, because they have, to a certain extent, there's been a transfer of wealth from middle-class households vis-a-vis onerous tuition to these small college towns.

And they've benefited that from 40 years.

And if this Trump ruling around not allowing or forcing international students to go home stands, you could have uh recessions or deep deeper recessions in almost every uh college town in america uh so i think people are going to start to focus on that yeah and i think there's going to be a ton of articles listing all the people who took ppp money who quite frankly just didn't need it yeah yeah but then what and then what because a lot of them aren't going to give it back they're just like no i'm not giving it back like some of the congress people had a bunch there's a whole bunch of congress people a lot of jared kushner friends kanye west there was like all kinds of people's taking the money it's really crazy.

Yeah, easy, right?

Yeah, it was just like, and who was running for, we didn't even get to that.

Let's just not.

The birthday party.

The birthday party.

I just feel, okay, sure.

Sure.

Why not?

Why not?

He gave a really unusual interview with Forbes, but,

but, you know, he's a very talented entrepreneur and artist.

That's how I will say that.

That's what I will say.

But this is.

Well, it's fine until it isn't, right?

I mean,

Elon's involved.

I don't think you should make.

Maybe he's serious.

I just feel like this is too serious a time.

Frankly, he's more qualified to run than the president.

That is fair.

That is fair.

That is fair.

That's a low bar, my friend.

All right, we'll finish up talking about the Harper's thing.

A large group, I think about 200 of writers, well-known writers and academics, wrote a letter on justice and open debate in Harper's magazine,

which they were whinging about.

cancel culture.

And I'm going to read you a couple of tweets I've put up.

This is a guy named Jamal Jordan, who goes under at lost black boy on Twitter.

He goes, over 200 people, many of them writers, signed the Harper's Letter, yet no one seemed to call out excessive use of the passive voice or lack of specific examples.

Maybe I'm the dumb one.

They did prove one thing.

You can't argue with a piece of writing.

It doesn't actually say anything.

So that was one, what I thought was really funny.

I think there were just a lot of really good criticisms.

And I don't think it was pylon.

I think it was really, really

smart about what the problem was, which is, first of all, you had different people, some of whom were hypocritical in their,

in saying what they were saying.

You know what I mean?

Like they have done the same thing themselves.

That's one issue, but that's besides the point.

I think it's this idea that

here's another one from Jessica Valenti.

It's fascinating how many people are threatened by the idea that saying dumb shit has consequences.

Like, where did you grow up that you could just run your mouth off?

Which I thought I thought was funny.

You know, I think there's a lot.

a lot to that.

And Mike Masnick really wrote a really great piece that I recommend to everyone about it.

So give me your take, because I thought it was a dumb essay and

the false equivalence between Trump does this, but it's not even the same.

Trump's activities really hurt people.

This is just,

it just, the whole thing was badly done by good, some people who are very, very good writers.

So

I'm coming down there.

That's where I come down.

And I also think people who didn't get to speak speaking up.

This was a group that gets to speak all the time.

And so anyway, go ahead.

Go ahead.

Make yours, Chase.

A lot of good points.

I think the article, the letter maybe was not that elegant.

I think it's a difficult letter to write.

But I'll just speak from someone who spent 20 years on a college campus.

I think college campuses have made a lot of progress.

I think they're much more what I'll call tolerant of people who don't look like them or empathetic regarding people who don't look like us or like each other.

But it seems like we have no tolerance for people who don't think like us.

There's very few conservative voices on campus.

And now we have gotten to a point where respected academics, whether it's Steven Pinker

put out data.

I'm not going to go with you.

And they want to shape an argument.

But the thing that makes our arguments stronger is we battle test them and we can appreciate other,

at least the dialogue.

Rather than saying,

oh, Steven Pinker put out something that offends us.

Let's ruin his career.

No, but it's not ruined his career.

His career doesn't get ruined.

None of these people have their career ruined.

They don't like that.

But editors are being fired everywhere.

Oh, some of the stuff.

For some of the stuff.

Your editor was fired.

That is not, you see, again, you're like, you're putting it down to a reductive.

There was a long,

it went on a lot longer than you think.

He is a great guy, but made a lot of mistakes.

It wasn't just one.

And that's just not true.

They would like it to be this narrative.

It's just not true.

These people, listen, this is another thing from him.

The idea there's some narrowing ideas is nonsense.

These people are getting criticized for their bad ideas and their response to play victim and pretend the space in which they can speak has narrowed.

They're full of shit.

Spare me the substory.

Go down the list of signatories.

Many are incredibly famous, are regularly published in top publication, often appear on TV.

They have no fear of their livelihoods.

And trust me, whatever contrarian ideas they claim, they're not able to share, they are, in fact, being shared widely.

There are all sorts of ways in which they get to express their viewpoints, and they do.

Getting criticized for the ideas is called counterspeech.

The thing that they claim to be supporting, they're just playing victim.

They don't like counterspee.

It's not counter speech, Kara.

It is.

There's no doubt there should be.

There's a difference between consequences when you say something stupid or wrong.

And then there's a culture that's decided that if you don't sign up for my orthodoxy and turn it into my dogma, you're putting your career at risk.

And the result is a lack of thoughtful, data-driven debate around key issues that means a lot of the things that we want to see happen will not happen because there isn't an open, honest debate about it.

I think this is hardly the biggest issue of our day.

And I think that Mike has it right, that these people have spent their lives protected in ivory towers, is he right, and now facing real free speech and people from outside their privileged bubble and are freaking the fuck out about it.

And I said, so stop pretending consequences and counter speech are anti-speech.

You're not actually brave truth tellers you want to be.

You're coming off as privileged leaders who are being challenged by ideas for the first time.

The signatories are so quick to clutch pearls, but people actually calling out bad ideas as bad and saying that maybe institutions who have redatorial discretion should be a bit more discretionary.

They think they're facing for the speech are somehow anti-free speech.

It's not.

I think Gia Tolentino writes about this intelligently, like talking, what it does is you create a bad argument, then you cherry-pick the insults and then say you're a victim.

It's just,

I think you're

conflating victimization with people with a dialogue that has been squelched, at least on university campuses, that we could all benefit from.

These people never shut up.

It's just, it's just, to me, it's that they're true.

There are a lot of people who feel as if they can't address certain issues.

The Trump playbook is exactly this.

They are on the Mark Zuckerberg side of the equation of this thing.

And so.

You feel that they're crying victim.

I think they're not just crying victim, is that every speech doesn't get to be said.

It's this is this is this fallacy.

And there's something coming called counterspee from groups of people who've been excluded and been excluded from discussion.

They just don't like that they are finally like when they have a bad idea, they're looking at whatever you think of any of these writers, some of them have really bad takes, and they should get none of them are suffering for it very much.

And you may think that on college campuses, I understand that you can't do it to one, but the abuses that went on on college campuses by professors for so long enough.

Like you're getting at some point, you pay for what you know the life you lead, as James Baldwin said.

I've quoted him.

Yeah, we are producing a generation of guardians of gotcha

who are saying to people who, quite frankly, probably share more about their beliefs than they would imagine, you're holding the gun wrong, you're fighting the enemy wrong, you're helping wrong, and that's that's that's permission or that's reason for you to be drawn and quartered and ostracized.

But there's no drawing and quartering.

These are the richest people who are not.

Are you kidding, Carol?

They're just half the people that come on, half the people that come on my podcast give me a list of things they can't talk about because they're worried that they're going to use the wrong verb and that then their faculty is going to come after them.

I don't know.

The stuff around J.K.

Rowling, she's getting attacked because she's saying things that

are trash, by the way.

And she should be called trash if that's what people think.

And she should take it.

And that's, and she could, and she continues to persist in saying it and continues to have a platform.

I think all this is not our biggest problem in this country.

And it's being cynically used by the Trump administration in a way that it plays right into their thing.

And that's my problem.

It's like, why don't we have a real discussion about this rather than have a bunch of overprivileged elitists tell us that they're hurt by people not liking them?

Like, I just, it feels like, it, it feels incredibly tone deaf at a time when people really do need to speak and

hear things that they may not like.

We're shooting ourselves in the foot.

The far left left orthodoxy turned into dogma, it turns off moderates, and

they're no better than the far right.

No, that is, oh, come on, come on.

The stuff that the Trump administration does is there's people jailed.

Where's my burner fire?

People are actually getting killed for and getting impacted because of the stuff that the far right has been yanking out.

The far left, maybe they're annoying, but there's nobody like of the protesters that died, it was all protesters.

I think they're, some of them are very annoying.

And I've had this debate with lots of friends of mine.

You know, I think a lot of them are ridiculous.

I think

they overstep.

And at the same time,

it's a conversation that has been long in coming from people who have been disinformed.

The one key question here is, what were you and Stephanie Rule doing without me?

How can that happen?

Where would Stephanie happen?

How can that happen without me?

Where would Stephanie?

She came down right in the middle, I think, probably.

We need to get.

Let's get Stephanie back.

Let's get her back.

I think Stephanie is with me on this one.

I think Stephanie is a proud sister in arms of the raging moderates.

And we're making a comeback here, Kara.

There is a place for us in this world it's not raging moderates it's not it's just not I just feel like this particular first of all read the thing boneheaded just no just read the actual essay it's so full of the passive voice and it's butts there's so many word butts in it it's ridiculous about don't question my progressive bona fides i watch christian amanpur and then when i go home to watch myself on christian amanpur i use duck duck go to find you on her show she's nice she's a nice i was on with her show with the guy the handsome dreamy guy i think his name's bari or sorry he's like this totally cooled-down PBS kind of handsome Indian guy.

He's fine.

I love Christiane.

She's great.

I did a great interview with her at South by Southwest.

She's just great.

She seems like someone to me that we go on Facebook's board and then leave after two months.

She's an eight or nine weaker on Facebook's board.

And then

bring out the new memos we finally need.

It does, not that it would matter.

It wouldn't matter.

I'm just telling you, being on the side of Mark Zuckerberg is not the place to be.

That's all I got to tell you.

Just not history.

History.

Do you have a prediction for us, Kara?

I don't have any.

I predict that I don't know what i'm going to do about my son going nyu and you gave me no solace that's all i have to say no

and you know what

him infecting you he you would infect him let's just make that clear he's been so careful and you've traveled all over the god's green earth all over the place hey look i get i get i get almost infected by kimberly gafoil oh yeah you were you were near her i'm just saying my son wears a mask he wants to get tested he's been very careful so i'm worried about

i got tested he take your course now that you're opening it.

Yeah, I'm getting tested with him.

He wants to get it.

You can't.

Undergrad's going to take it.

Only second-year MBAs.

Oh, you won't let him in?

Second-year MBAs?

That's the only people that can go?

Can't even go.

He's not very well connected.

No.

Of course.

He loves you, you know.

Unfortunately, he likes you.

Is it my predictions or my wavy blue?

No, so when we're listening to you in the car sometimes, he's like, that Scott is really smart.

You're making so nice to me today.

I don't care what's going on.

Don't worry.

I'm coming back because you're completely an idiot on this Harper's Loader.

Oh, God.

You whiny.

But I'm your idiot.

But I'm your idiot.

Whiny man.

I'm your idiot.

I'm half of the partnership.

You just did the douche club ad.

You know what I mean?

Like

douche house ad.

Because you're interested.

And because you're a white man in a village.

Bringing voice to the overheard.

Douche house.

Yes, yes.

I think I got something.

I think we're onto something there.

All right, Scott.

Got to go.

What are you doing for the weekend?

The same thing I do every weekend.

Time with the boys.

We're going to

head back to New York.

So, yeah, good stuff.

All good stuff.

I'm going to spend time with Stanley Steamer because my cat peed on the couch.

Anyway, that's a good idea.

I would not have guessed that.

That would not have been my first guess.

Here's another not guess that people didn't know.

I gave Eric Johnson, who is the producer of Rico Decode, my red chair, my famous red chair that I bought from Steelcase.

Many, many people.

How PBS of you.

I know.

What an interesting.

What an interesting yet boring moment.

I wish I could.

Let me just tell you.

And then he has this big long red beard now because he looks like he's like fighting for the Union Army.

But I said, I gave my chair to the, to the lead singer from Phish.

And then Brooke Hammerling, who's been on our show, said,

you don't even know Fish.

And I was like, I, Trey Anastasia and I shared a carpool in middle school.

Thank you.

And that, there's a piece of information you didn't know.

Me and Trey Anastasia were carpoolers together.

I did not know that.

Yeah, you did.

That's another in a long series of incredibly weak flexes.

But seriously, that's what I got.

Cat P and Trey Anastasia from Fish.

That's what I got today.

Anyway, don't forget if there's a story in the news and you're curious about it and want to hear our opinion, email us at pivot at boxmedia.com to be featured on the show.

Okay, we're going to get out of here now.

Let me read these credits.

Today's show was produced by Rebecca Sinanez.

Fernando Finite engineered this episode.

Eric Anderson is Pivot's executive producer.

Special thanks to Eric Johnson, who worked with me on Recode Decode, who is working on this episode.

Thanks also to Drew Burroughs.

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