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The Tesla Protests Come for Cybertruck Owners
Episode Notes
/Transcript
YouTube version: https://youtu.be/-Hb8jhaLILQ
Hello, and welcome to the four zero four Media Podcast, where we bring you unparalleled access to hidden worlds, both online and IRL. Four zero four Media is a journalist founded company and needs your support. To subscribe, go to 404media.co, as well as bonus content every single week. Subscribers also get access to additional episodes where we respond to their best comments. Gain access to that content at 404media.co.
Joseph:I'm your host, Joseph. And with me are the four zero four media cofounders, Sam Cole
Sam:Hello.
Joseph:Emmanuel Mayberg Hey. What's up? And Jason Kebler.
Jason:Hello. Hello. Reminder, a week from now well, Monday, we're gonna have our party at South by Southwest. So it is coming up. This is the last pod before that.
Jason:If you're gonna be in Texas, come see us, at the Speakeasy. We'll include, like, reservation information in the show notes again, but we're very excited.
Joseph:Yeah. And now I have a a little bit more detail on where exactly timing and all of that sort of thing. Yeah. Me and the manual won't be there, but Jason and Sam will be. And to be honest, it's probably for the best because they will make it a lot more fun than if me and the manual were there.
Joseph:I don't know. Maybe I'll be
Jason:too harsh as fast. Brutal. We also have hats back in stock. A lot of people were asking, but we've re upped on hats. So if you wanna buy a four zero four media hat, they're in our Shopify store.
Joseph:Will we have those at the events?
Jason:Yes. Okay. But if you don't wanna fly to Texas for a hat, I will mail you one.
Joseph:I guess we can use shipping. Yeah. I suppose. Whatever. Okay.
Joseph:So let's go with the first story. Facebook Cybertruck Owners. I I can't believe I botched the headline. I got on the cadence all wrong. Facebook Cybertruck Owners Group copes with relentless mockery, like I'm about to after reading that.
Joseph:I mean, the headline kind of explains itself, and we'll get into that. But first of all, Jason, what is this broader context of, woah, these protests against Tesla and Cybertrucks and Musk, they've really taken off in the past week. Like, what's the context that we're coming into this with?
Jason:Yeah. So, I mean, the the context is that people are mad that Elon Musk is destroying the federal government, you know, firing people, has aligned himself with the far right in various countries in The United States, is sort of an unelected, I guess, self appointed bureaucrat who, in many cases, is, like, self dealing in the federal government. Like, there's this big story recently about how Starlink is gonna take over this critical FAA, communications contract from Verizon. And that I mean, that's just, like, there's news every single day. And so people have been thinking, like, how can we push back against what is happening because Democrats in congress are not doing a very good job pushing back against this.
Jason:And so there's been this movement called the Tesla takedown protests where people are protesting at Tesla dealerships, mostly on weekends, it seems, like Tesla showrooms and Tesla, dealerships, and they're just picketing out front. But there's also been kind of like some some defacement occurring either as part of this or as just, like, other types of self done protests. So, there was someone in Colorado who threw Molotov cocktails at a Tesla dealership. For example, in Massachusetts, someone lit a Tesla supercharger on fire. There's been a lot of, like, graffiti at various places.
Jason:There I think there were nine people arrested at a Tesla takedown protest in Manhattan over the weekend. And so these are really growing. Like, these protests are are really growing. And I think part of the well, the entire point behind it is that a huge amount of Elon Musk's power and net worth is wrapped up in Tesla. And it's a publicly traded company.
Jason:The stock has actually been cratering over the last couple weeks.
Joseph:Sales have plummeted in Europe by, like,
Jason:65 in Europe. I'm very curious to see what sales are gonna look like in The United States next time, you know, this is next time they report. And then there's also just, like, this idea that a lot of Elon Musk's power is derived from Tesla, and Tesla's stock valuation is really high, not because it is a super profitable car company, but because it has this promise of being, like, a robotaxi company, a robotics company, an AI company, and all of that is very, very speculative. And so Tesla is, like, I wouldn't call it a meme stock necessarily, but a lot of people are sort of investing in Tesla as a way of investing in Elon Musk. And so the thought is if you can, like, tank Tesla, you can kind of take a lot of power away from Elon Musk.
Jason:So that's kinda like the broader context here.
Joseph:Super briefly, do do do you think that is accurate? Or maybe, like, is that accurate? Like, if people attack Tesla, it could take power away from Musk? Or is it like I know the company is getting so big and now he's he's in government and he has Starlink and all this. Like, it may not be wholly effective.
Joseph:And I'm not saying these people shouldn't be protesting. They can protest, of course, about wherever they want. But, like, do you think it could be effective or is it hard to say yet?
Jason:So last week, the really good podcast, Tech Won't Save Us, had an entire episode about this where they had on the author of a book called I believe it's called Ludicrous, and it's about Tesla. And I thought that that was a very podcast. If if you're interested in going, like, deep on this, I mean, the thought is that, like, a lot like, Elon Musk doesn't have a lot of liquid assets. His biggest path to liquidity is through selling Tesla stock. And it's like he has a lot of money kind of, like, stuck in Twitter, which is now a private company.
Jason:He has a lot of money stuck in SpaceX, which is a private company, and so it's not it's not very liquid. And so, like, Elon Musk is going to remain an incredibly powerful person regardless. I think that SpaceX on its own is a massive, massive company that is currently, like, The United States' only way of getting to space. Well, I guess now we have Blue Origin and some other ones, but but they're mainly the ones that are doing US government satellite launches and taking astronauts to the to the space station, and that has remained the case for for a while. And so I think also Starlink is becoming increasingly important both, like, geopolitically, but also as a consumer product.
Jason:Like, it it's being taken up by a lot of people in rural areas. And so I don't think that you can, like, tank Elon Musk entirely by tanking Tesla, but it would certainly help a lot. I I think yeah.
Joseph:Sure. So there's all that context. People are understandably very annoyed at Musk and are targeting Tesla, very fairly and Cybertrucks as well. You then go and find this Facebook group specifically for Cybertruck owners, and you go in there. And I think you said there were broadly two types of post.
Joseph:What are those two types, basically?
Jason:That's funny. So there's two types of posts in the the Facebook Cybertruck owners group. One is people talking about, like, strangers flicking them off or writing on their cyber trucks. Like, these cyber trucks attract dirt a lot of the the time and, like, salt and things like that. So people are, like, writing things in them, like, with their fingers, And people, like, just sort of messing with cyber trucks, and we'll talk a lot about that.
Jason:And then the other type is, like, people own construction companies or roofing companies who have wrapped them using it's like vinyl wrap, like, where you change the color of the car, and they basically put, like, advertisements for their, like, roofing company on there. So there's been, like, some There's a little soap. Wraps and stuff like that.
Joseph:Right. But there's and I don't fully understand why, but there's, like, a type of guy who is buying these, and they're a small business owner, which is great, but they're all they're all buying wraps for their cyber trucks? Like, why I I mean, I guess you don't know why that's a thing, but it's a thing apparently in this group.
Jason:Well, it it is, but I think also it's, like, a lot of the protests and ad hoc, like, fuck Tesla sentiment has been directed at cyber trucks in particular, and I think there's a few reasons for that. It's like, one, they're ridiculous vehicles. Like, they're just gigantic. You know, they're not even allowed in Europe because they're too large. And so there's been this movement in The United States to have, like, larger and larger and larger SUVs, which are very dangerous for pedestrians first and foremost.
Jason:It's like you're way more likely to be killed if you're a biker or pedestrian, if you're hit by an SUV than you are a smaller car. And so that that's not great. But, also, it's like the Cybertruck is bulletproof or it like, he's advertised it as being, like, has bulletproof glass. Like, he's advertised it as essentially, like, a tank that can keep you isolated from other people. And you kind of, like, sit in this, like, moving fortress.
Jason:And I think that there people don't like that, first of all. Like, I don't like that. I don't like seeing Cybertrucks around and be like, who who is this? Why are you so much better than me? Because you you think you're cool because you have a tank or whatever.
Jason:And then there's also the fact that Cybertrucks were released after Elon Musk become became a gigantic asshole and dickhead.
Joseph:Like There's no plausible deniability in the same way there is with a potentially with a Tesla, even though lots of owners now are trying to cover up their ownership either with those stickers in, I think somebody tweeting from San Francisco says there's a lot of these stickers saying, like, I bought it before we all knew about him. Well, then something I just shared in our chat is that it looks like some Tesla owners are putting different vehicle branding on their Teslas. So there's a Honda logo and stuff to make it look like a different brand of car, so it can blend in. But you're right. And, like, Cybertruck is, like, unambiguously Musk.
Joseph:Like, you'd like, you basically have to be a Musk fanboy or an extreme edge case to own one of these vehicles. You can see why people would target them. Yeah.
Jason:Right. I mean, for for many years, if you bought an electronic an electric vehicle at all, you are probably buying a Tesla because they go the fastest. They have the best charging infrastructure, like the, incentives to the tax incentives and things to buy them were were very good. So I know and have met a lot of people who have, like, Tesla model three or Tesla model y because they were like, oh, I wanna protect the environment, blah blah blah. And a lot of those people are very regretful at this point because they didn't know what Elon Musk was going to become.
Jason:And I think you can argue whether, you know, they should have seen the signs earlier or not. But if you're buying a Cybertruck, you're sort of def you're, like, definitely aligning with Elon Musk's broader world view at this point. And so a lot of the anger that's been directed at Tesla and Tesla owners has been directed in this first wave at Cybertruck owners.
Joseph:Sure. And
Jason:so, I mean, that's like a long way of saying. There's a there's a this Facebook group where Cybertruck owners are bitching to each other constantly about how people are mean to them, how people are flicking them off, how people are riding cyber cuck on their Teslas. Their cyber chode was another one. That's good. People are putting, like, Nazi car.
Jason:What's the other one? Tesla it's not test Nazi, but it's there's, like, a few different Swastika. Swastika. Swastika. Yeah.
Joseph:Yeah.
Jason:There's some of Swastikars, and it's like a lot of people just coping with, like, how often does this happen to you? And a lot of people are saying that, you know, they they definitely are getting flicked off pretty often. I think acts of, like, where people are actually, like, vandalizing their cars in some way are a little bit more rare, but they definitely engender the most conversation on this Facebook group. And so there's lots of people talking about it. And it's a mix between people who sort of lean into it and say that they enjoy being a villain and people who are like, I just wanna drive to work or my wife or my husband really doesn't like that when we're driving, people, like, honk at us and flick us off and stuff.
Jason:And so now we need to get rid of our car because my spouse is mad at me.
Joseph:Right. And to be clear, the people uploading these photos or videos or whatever into this Facebook group, they are the owners themselves or as you say, maybe their spouse is the the owner or the driver or whatever. So, you mentioned that then there's almost two reasons why they're doing it as well. Like, they kind of wanna flex and revel in being a villain, or they're sort of, I don't know, just being really sad about it and asking each other, what what are the what sort of the conversations in response to that? Are people then pitching in and going, yeah, it's happening to me too, and this sucks?
Joseph:Or is anybody engaging with, you know, the incredibly obvious and fair argument that Musk sucks. Is anybody engaging with that, or is it more about their own vehicles?
Jason:Some of them are like, wow. I really didn't bargain for this. And some people are saying I I don't, I don't always agree with Elon or I wish he wouldn't do this. But I would say that a lot of people are now seeing it as, like, an identity symbol where they're saying, I'm all in with Elon. I'm all in with Trump.
Jason:You know, cry harder libs. A lot of the discussion in there is, like, about the type of cars that are flicking them off. So a lot of times, there'll be a video or or photo, and they'll say, like, this person driving a Ford Fiesta flicked me off. They must be poor because a Ford Fiesta is inexpensive.
Joseph:Right. They are they are really telling on themselves by bringing up the other car when the other car doesn't matter. It's the car you're driving. Okay.
Jason:Exactly. Exactly. And then, I mean, the the other the other thing that I think is very important to talk about is, yes, it is the Cybertruck owners who are uploading these. And the way that they're uploading them is they're using, this feature on Tesla cars called Sentry, which is when the car is parked, you can turn it into, like, a stationary surveillance camera situation because every Tesla car has a bunch of cam outward facing cameras on it. And so they're just always filming.
Jason:And like a Ring camera, you can go back and look at the footage. And so there's a lot of people who are posting videos of people drawing on their cars. There's one incredible video
Joseph:of
Jason:a guy who walks up with a bunch of craft singles, like the little cheese slices, and he starts throwing cheese slices onto the, truck's windshield. And, you know, this guy was actually filming with his cell phone. You could see him filming with his cell phone. And then people in this group were screenshotting his face and talking about trying to use facial recognition on him, which is crazy. I have not seen any I've seen a lot of people say we should use facial recognition on these people, but I have not seen a positively identified person that was done using facial recognition.
Jason:However, there was one case in Texas where someone it was kind of an intense road rage incident, so I, like, hesitate to defend this. But, basically, like, another driver got out of his car at a stoplight and flicked off the Cybertruck owner. They filmed it with all of the cameras that exist on the Cybertruck, and he was wearing the shirt of his employer. And so they then, like, looked up on LinkedIn. That employer found him on a, like, group photo that was uploaded to LinkedIn and then complained to his employer, and they claim that they got him fired.
Jason:I don't know if that's accurate or not, but, it was covered by, like, the local news in Texas, that entire incident. And so I guess it's just like, we don't condone anything here, just reporting just reporting. But, like, if you're gonna fuck with a Tesla in some way, just know that they're always recording.
Sam:I always think about that with Tesla. As when I walk by them, it just feels like walking by a big camera to me. It's like they're covered in they're covered in cameras. So I was
Jason:They're covered in cameras, and they're facing every direction.
Sam:Yeah. And, yeah, it's like I don't know. It's like I'm always I'm notoriously not an amazing driver, which probably would surprise no one. And I always think about this when I'm, like, parking pretty tight next to a Tesla. I'm like, if I nick this thing, they're gonna see me do it, and it's gonna be on camera.
Sam:Or just, you know, when people vandalize people were doing this when Elon Musk, like, years ago, was kind of starting down this path and people were, like, five Teslas, and vandalizing them or keying them. I always thought that was really bold because it's like they can see it would do that. It's on video. Which is very different from a normal car, obviously.
Joseph:Yeah. Jason, I I think just last thing. Like, what happens now? I was gonna ask, does it escalate? But you actually opened with someone throwing a Molotov cocktail.
Joseph:So I don't know. It's a it's a big mess all all around, but, like, what what do you think happens now? Do we just see more of these? Or I
Jason:would say that the backlash to Tesla in general is still increasing. It's like every weekend. I think they've been doing these Tesla takeover protests for maybe three weekends now, and I feel like each weekend, they get more and more intense. There's more people involved. And I think also just sort of, like, the casual acts of flicking off cyber trucks and stuff.
Jason:This is something that people I know in my life were already like, I hate cyber trucks. I always flick them off. Just of their own volition, they've told me this before I even wrote this article. So I think that this is becoming another part of the culture war more or less, and so I I think it's gonna continue escalating. I mean, I don't know where this all goes.
Jason:I could see acts of violence and and things like that. I mean, certainly not condoning them, but you have people lighting superchargers on fire and throwing Molotov cocktails at dealerships. Like, it it's pretty intense already, and I think that there's no indication that Musk is gonna slow down or that the temperature is gonna come down on this anytime soon. I don't know. What do y'all think?
Joseph:I mean, broadly agree that, every day that Doge does something else and fires more federal workers or government gets made, ironically more inefficient, it's an easy target. You know? Sam, what do you think?
Sam:Yeah. I mean, I I don't I agree. I don't see it getting, more chilled anytime soon. I was thinking of it's like, what's the craziest thing that could escalate this could escalate into? And it's like, there's this, company that came out of China.
Sam:I think yesterday, they announced that they're making a drone car. So a drone open a hatch opens on your roof and a drone comes out. And I was like, what if they start putting those in cyber trucks? It's for it's for obviously for recording, but it's like, I'm gonna drone strike the guy who cut me off type vibe. I have a lot of opinions about big cars in general.
Sam:I think cars have gotten less safe in general. So the cyber truck divorce from the culture war, I find to be confusing. But, you know, it's because it's wrapped up in this stuff, it's what people are talking about. So yeah.
Emanuel:I think it's funny that, it's called the Cybertruck because it was referencing cyberpunk. Right? And the whole idea is that it's built like a tank because it imagines this future where you, the person who can afford a cyber truck, is driving through, you know, these crime infested cities where criminals are on every corner trying to harm you and the only way you can survive is if you have this armored car that looks like a tank. And when he introduced that, people are like, you're nuts. It's like, nobody cares about you or your car and you don't need this.
Emanuel:And, like, cities are safe and the world is safe, and there's no need for this. But, like, somehow, he managed to create a situation where it's like, yes. Like, maybe if you have a Cybertruck, people will hate you and will wanna throw Molotov cocktails at your car. It's just like I don't know. He he created the car for the world he wants to see and then in a way, like, that world came about, you know?
Jason:Yeah. I mean, he's manifested it. And, I mean, I'll bring up another podcast. I was listening, I think, to Trash Future the other day, and they were talking about all these billionaires with their bunkers and things like that. And you have all of these billionaires that have been planning for the apocalypse because they're like, oh, the apocalypse is coming.
Jason:But, like, they are the ones bringing it about, and that's that's really scary. I was just gonna say, Sam said, like, cars are getting less safe, and they've gotten so much less safe for pedestrians and for bikers and potentially, like, more safe for the people in them. And that's like it's such a huge problem where it's just, like, this individualistic society where it's like, fuck you. I have a tank, and I can run you over if I want to. And there's a lot of that sentiment in this Facebook group as well.
Jason:People are like, we need to film these people who are flicking us off and identify them and report them to their employers and things like that. And then there's there was one thread where they were discussing how do we respond to these protests, and people were like, let's all bring our cyber trucks down and and circle the protesters with them. And that's, like, really scary.
Joseph:Well, but they make, like, a violent biker gang of cyber trucks, basically. That'll go down well.
Jason:Yeah. I mean, people are, like, sort of out like, openly discussing, like, let's intimidate them with our large vehicles.
Sam:Which, like, literally happened in Charlottesville. You know? It's like someone died that way, which is horrifying to think that people are, like, we could do it again with our biggest stupid cars.
Joseph:Yeah. For sure. Well, we'll keep an eye on that. And, unfortunately, I'm sure it will escalate in some form. But we'll leave that there.
Joseph:When we come back, we're gonna take a hard pivot and talk about, the lovely tropical island nation of Palau and how it is actually helping US Traders circumvent, bypass, skirt crypto laws in The US. We'll be right back after this. Alright. And we are back. This is one I wrote.
Joseph:The headline is, buying a $250 residency card from a tropical island, let me bypass US crypto laws. So as mentioned before the break, this is, related to the Republic Of Palau, which is a country in Micronesia, near Indonesia and The Philippines, rare, rare small population. And the president of Palau and this company we're gonna talk about, they were thinking of new ways to bring money into the country. And you could do the Singapore model, which is you bring in millions and millions of people, but they didn't wanna do that. They were kind of screwed over by COVID when well, that did the tourism industry.
Joseph:So they they came up with this idea of launching a digital, residency where you could basically remotely become a resident, of Palau. But before I go into this, has anyone heard of the Estonia One? I feel like, Jason, you might heard of that, where Estonia said it was gonna do this sort of thing.
Jason:Yeah. It was like a digital residency card. Except I don't think they sent I think they just sent you, like, a digital certificate there, whereas you got, like, an actual physical card here, which I think I think makes it more real.
Joseph:Yes. So the Estonia One was years ago at this point, and I was like, oh, look, you can technically become a digital resident and you can open a company based I'm doing air quotes for people not watching on YouTube, based in Estonia. And you can make your company that way. That is similar here, but it's way more crypto focused. And, yes, as you said, they give you a physical ID, which I guess I'll try and hold up to the camera now for YouTube videos.
Joseph:The worst fault. The worst photo I've ever taken of myself, and you can see it on the article in the show notes. Really, really tired and not having my glasses on because they said you can't do that. You know? It's like a passport photo.
Jason:Wait. Should should we have Palau trivia very quickly? Like, before before we get into it. So Palau is my middle name first and foremost, not from Palau, but it's my mom's name. And it means palace in Catalan, which is what they speak in Barcelona, just so you know.
Jason:Survivor Palau was one of the first places that did they did Survivor on.
Joseph:And Wait. Really? That's okay.
Jason:I mean, it was like Now maybe it was like the third or fourth season maybe. Like, it's pretty early on.
Joseph:Uh-huh.
Jason:And that's its own those are the its claims to fame. That's that's all I know about it. And now they offer digital residency.
Joseph:Those are the claim to fame and bypassing US crypto laws. So whereas the Estonia One was about making a company, this one was like, hey, we'll send you the and actually, to be it's not just the ID. There's also this all of this web free stuff where you put your identity on the blockchain, blah blah blah. I did not even mention that in the article because it's basically irrelevant. Because there's all of this future facing stuff that's, like, it's not real.
Joseph:You know what I mean? But what is real is the ID card that they send you in the mail. So they say you can use this ID card for rentals, and they maybe use it Airbnb or or something like that, checking for hotels. And they have all of these other plans to let you have, like, a residential address in Palau as well, and I'll keep an eye on that. The main thing and they advertise this explicitly on the website to get the ID with a company called RNS.ID.
Joseph:They say you can use it for KYC, know your customer. And this is where you go to a website, like a crypto exchange, and you verify your identity. Right? If you wanna sell Bitcoin or or whatever, you have to go to the site. You give them, I don't know, your passport or your driver's license.
Joseph:You tell them where you are, and that's so you know, and, it's for anti money laundering laws, but also investigators can be like, well, there's really bad suspicious stuff here. Here's a subpoena or a warrant to Binance or whoever. Give us the ID of that user. This is incredibly standard, obviously, not just in the normal financial industry, but increasingly cryptocurrency as well. People who trade crypto don't really like that, it seems.
Joseph:You know, they like to send their Bitcoin or their Ethereum or their Monero or whatever, without linking their ID to it. And you are actually not able to use some exchanges in The US. One called KuCoin, k u coin. You can't use that based in Seychelles, because they were told to get out of New York state, for example. You can't without verifying your ident verifying your identity access, you know, unlimited or near unlimited trading or very large amounts, all that sort of thing.
Joseph:So if you're a US Trader and you want to withdraw a million dollars of cryptocurrency every single day from an exchange that you're not actually allowed to use because you're based in The US, you can get the Palau card to do that, basically. And I I watched a ton of YouTube videos where people are saying this explicitly. Like, this isn't me interpreting the products. This is the cloud
Jason:for, and it's what people are talking. They're like, use this hack, like, quote, unquote hack to to get around KYC laws. Right?
Joseph:Yeah. So the the ID people themselves, they're saying use it for KYC. All of these people on YouTube are saying, like, you can use this to bypass US crypto laws by using it for KYC. So I found that interesting. I'm really into KYC stuff, especially when, you know well, more than a few months ago at this point, maybe a year ago, I guess.
Joseph:But we did that story about how some underground website was developing photos of fake IDs with allegedly neural networks, and that, oh, woah, here's a fake ID to create an account. It's basically the same thing, but the account's not fake. It's very real. I'm holding it in my hand, but it's from this government that's just like giving them out, basically, it seems. So I sent some money to this company.
Joseph:I did give it accurate information. You know, I gave it my real name, real shipping address, all of that sort of thing because I didn't well, I didn't want to actually commit fraud myself, obviously. We always have to stay within the law. And I wasn't really testing that part of it. It was more, what can I do with this ID?
Joseph:So I do that. A few weeks later, it arrives in the mail. It comes in a very regal blue and gold, envelope, which is nice. That arrives and then got too busy to write about it for months and then finally got round to it. But the last the last bit of the puzzle for me was taking it and seeing if you could actually do this on exchanges, you know, in the same way we did that with the neural network generated ID document.
Joseph:It was I just made an account, this case on KuCoin, because that's what people were talking about. Gave it my ID, said I was from Palau. It was like, well, what region of the world are you from? What country are you from? You select Palau.
Joseph:You select the ID. You send them a photo. It then does some facial recognition, which you know is really standard on any of these sorts of services. Right? Both sort of gray market or entirely legitimate.
Joseph:And, I don't know, maybe fifteen, twenty minutes later, something like that, it said, your identity has been verified. You can now withdraw a million dollars from, this account, if you have a million, obviously. It's more, it allows you to transfer great sums of wealth, very, very quickly. You know?
Jason:So I thought it was very interesting that, yes, like, it works on KuCoin, but there's some of some of the bigger ones just straight up say we're not taking a Palau digital residency card. Right?
Joseph:Yeah. So, I pinged two of the main exchanges in the world, Binance and Kraken, who have all had their own problems, you know, in in various degrees, Binance especially. But I wanted to ask them, hey, people in The US Traders, are specifically buying this ID to bypass KYC. Would you allow this on the platform? Do you allow this on the platform?
Joseph:And I was kinda surprised in that both Binance and Kraken said, we've already banned this. Like, they already say, or heavily suggest that it could be such an issue for KYC that they don't allow people to sign up to it. And Kraken even went a step further, and they said their concern was that the Palau ID could be obtained by sanctioned entities. You know, that is people on the or entities on The US sanction list or whatever. And to be clear, I haven't seen any evidence that's actually happened.
Joseph:But I did email the ID company again. And I asked them, Kraken says this, and I asked, has a sanctioned entity ever been given a Palau ID? And they didn't respond, which I don't know. I feel like you could respond to that quite easily, considering responses to my earlier emails. But, yeah, even though people are using this, the big exchanges were like, we don't want anything to do with it, essentially, which I found interesting.
Joseph:You know?
Jason:I think also, I haven't followed this that closely, but I I think you've followed it a little bit more closely. Trump was elected with the support of a lot of crypto bros in The United States and a lot of crypto money, and he's talked about, like, bailing out Bitcoin, which we don't need to get into. But I I'm curious if you think that, Trump's approach to KYC is going to touch crypto in some way or if you you've looked into that.
Joseph:Well, I I think that a lot of people in crypto hope it does. As you say, Trump has generally been a very pro, crypto president, most recently with the further announcements, I guess, of, like, a strategic crypto reserve. Right? Which has hinted that before, but then said it again, more recently. I think posted a tweet about it and then, what was it, a few minutes later, tweeted, I mean, specifically Bitcoin and Ethereum, because the price wasn't going up, and then the price went up when he actually, made a post naming the cryptocurrencies.
Joseph:And, of course, the cryptocurrency industry has poured a ton of money, into Trump and to getting him elected. So I think the industry really hopes that more people basically get involved in crypto. And if it's this way, it's this way. If it's another way, it can do that as well. But one of the people I spoke to, one of these US Traders, One of the YouTubers, a guy called Ben from DeFi Rebels, He said he was concerned that more big exchanges would ban, the Palau ID.
Joseph:But then he said, quote, with a pro crypto administration now in The US, we might see some more exchanges start allowing non KYC trading again. And he's probably right, or he's right in that might happen. That would also be totally crazy. Like, to go from this space where people have to give their ID to exchange cryptocurrencies because then, of course, the FBI or law enforcement or anyone else can come in and stop money laundering. So, like, completely get rid of that would be insane.
Joseph:And I don't even mean from a personal perspective. I almost mean just more and what the impact could be. And I mean, it could even delegitimize the industry again. I don't really know. But that's what people are hoping for.
Joseph:Absolutely. Alright. Let's leave that there. I will say, if you know anything else about KYC or bypasses or anything like that, I'm always interested, so please reach out. But if you are listening to the free version of the podcast, I'll now play us out.
Joseph:But if you are a paying four or four media subscriber, we're gonna talk about a pretty catastrophic error with Instagram and Instagram Reels that ended up showing a hell of a lot of people stuff that they probably shouldn't have seen and certainly didn't want to see. You can subscribe and gain access to that content at 404media.co. We'll be right back after this. Alright. We are back in the subscribers only section.
Joseph:This is one Jason wrote. But before I get to that, Sam or Emmanuel, without getting the specifics, did you experience this yourselves, what we're gonna talk about? Like, did you see it on your own feeds, or did you only really learn about it from Jason's story?
Sam:That's a hard one for us because, like, our our algorithms are shot to shit. Like, they are we're already in the bad algo, and it's you know, that's on purpose in a lot of cases. So I think when Jason first, brought this up, we were both Amanda and I were both kind of like, you know, that's, like it's pretty normal for Instagram to be garbage, like Instagram reels because ours is frequently absolutely garbage. So, but then, obviously, he's he turned up a lot more, a lot more to it than just that. Like, it was definitely a thing was happening, I think, is how he worded, initially.
Sam:So, yeah, I don't know. Emmanuel, your your algorithm's probably worse than mine a lot of the time.
Emanuel:Yeah. I didn't see it. I had, like, a phase last year where I was watching a lot of street racing videos, and those could get pretty gnarly because people would get in accidents and definitely get hurt. But at the moment, I am down this very, very, very, very narrow lane where it's just porn, sex work, and AI generated content that is sexual in some kind, mostly because of stories that Jason and I worked on recently and stories that we're going to publish soon. Yeah.
Emanuel:So I didn't I didn't see I didn't see this in particular.
Joseph:So those are the things that Sam and, Emmanuel see. There's no point asking me because I don't use Instagram Reels. So I don't think I've ever watched Instagram Reel apart from when Jason has sent it, maybe, for this story. As some maybe I mentioned this in the podcast before or maybe it was just in the behind the blog, but the only way I interact with vertical video is the YouTube home page, scroll down to the vertical ones, watch one, refresh the page to get new ones, and then scroll down again to select it. It's I I know it's deranged.
Joseph:It's insane. Like, that's not how you engage with this sort of stuff. Anyway, so there's this massive error on Instagram, Jason. Basically and we'll get into the specifics. But, basically, it is showing ordinary people, not like us, not like weirdos or journalists who watch crazy shit all the time.
Joseph:It shows ordinary people really, really depraved things. And right now, and I showed them this earlier, there is a content warning here like there is in the article because we might get a little bit graphic. What what were people seeing? What what were they seeing?
Jason:Yeah. So so the article is called, Instagram error turned reels into never ending scroll of murder, gore, and violence. So that's what people were seeing. Again, content warning. I'm sorry, but I think it's just easier to talk about, like, what I actually saw.
Jason:So, this was, I believe, February 26, which is, like, it's notable what day it it was on for some reason, which I'll get into. But, basically, a four zero four media reader texted me or signaled me and said, are you gonna write about all of the gore that's on Instagram? And like Emmanuel and Sam, Sam, I kind of shrugged them off at first because I've seen lots of fucked up things on Instagram regularly, and they don't delete things often. And I was just like, I don't know. Like, you probably made a wrong turn somehow, like, in your algorithm.
Jason:Like, probably something bad happened. Like, you're just stuck in some weird algorithm. And he was like, no. It's not just me. Like, check this Instagram subreddit, like, the Instagram subreddit.
Jason:And the Instagram subreddit was full of people saying, like, I've saw 70 people get murdered on Instagram today, and there was just, like, a lot of this. And and so I was like, hey. Like, I'm really sorry. I don't want to ask you to traumatize yourself, but can you send me a screen recording of what you're seeing? And he didn't I mean, he did do that, but he was scrolling so fast.
Jason:Or I was like, I'm really sorry. I can't, like, actually see people getting murdered because you're scrolling by too quickly. Like, is there a better way of doing this? Because I wasn't seeing it on my own Instagram reels. What I was seeing was a bunch of weird fake AI porn, kind of like
Joseph:and you know what I mean? And normal for you in the following home. Right.
Jason:Yes. Exactly. Exactly. And so, you know, with his consent, he said, I'm gonna send you my login information so you can log in. So I logged in to his Instagram and, you know, he didn't wanna use his name, but he like, it's a bike themed Instagram page.
Jason:The page is, like, about bicycles. And he he was like, normally, my algorithm is full of dogs and biking, like, people riding bikes. And today, I saw a person get eaten by a shark. I saw someone get murdered. I saw animal abuse, so on and so forth.
Jason:So I logged in and I started scrolling, and I immediately was just, like, hit with content warning after content warning, which is something that Instagram does when it detects sensitive content. It will put it behind, like, a click through screen where it says
Joseph:blurry. Right?
Jason:It's, like, it's not even blurry. It's just a gray screen that goes on top of the reel before it plays, and it says something like there's sensitive content here. It says sensitive content. This video may contain graphic or violent content, and then you can click see reel. And once you do that, you'll you'll see it anyway.
Jason:And so almost every single one had that warning, whereas, like, that's not normal. Like, unless you've really told the algorithm that you love this stuff, like, you shouldn't see that after each and every one. So I started looking at them, and I saw an elephant the elephant video, which is, like this is the one that everyone saw. I saw that one on my normal, Instagram. I saw that everyone talking about that on Reddit.
Jason:And it's a video of an elephant that steps on a guy and just, like, flattens him and steps on him, like, a lot of times. And it had, like, 500,000 likes, like, thousands and thousands and thousands of comments. And then a lot of the comments were like, what the fuck is going on Instagram today? Like, this is the, like, fifteenth violent video that I've seen today, or I've seen, like, 70 violent videos today, or I've seen all sorts of things. I saw, like, people beating an alligator to death, like, very violently.
Jason:I saw many, many murders where it was, like, close-up videos of people getting shot in the head, like, through surveillance footage and stuff like that. And it is definitely not AI generated. Like, I I could tell. It was, like, you know, like, convenience store robberies gone wrong, things like that where the person ends up, like, shooting the cashier, things like that. I saw a lot of people getting run over by cars.
Jason:I saw someone fly out of a tower of terror, amusement park ride and, like, splatter on the ground, and everyone starts screaming. I saw, like, a lot of dead bodies in, like, wartime, and this was, like, video after video after video. There was this one account that was called people dead daily that just had, like, tons of videos of people dying. And this is, like, a type of content that has been on the Internet for a long time. Like, there was
Joseph:a lot leak and all that sort of shit.
Jason:Yeah. Liveleak was one. The most I think the most infamous one was r slash watch people die, which is a subreddit on on Reddit. And that one was around for a long time, and the moderators tried for a very long time to keep it on Reddit. Like, they tried to comply with various Reddit rules, but it was, like, videos of people dying in accidents and things like that.
Jason:And when Reddit finally banned it, like, the the argument for keeping it online was that it showed, like, the sanctity of and fragileness of life more or less, and people like, that that was kind of, like, why people said that they wanted to see it, but it was just, like, very, like, voyeuristic, super disturbing stuff most of the time. There was there was, like, a lot of other ones. I I'm trying to, like, I'm trying to remember some of the gore sites, but, like, when I was growing up, that was, like, something that my friends and I would, like, dare each other to, like, click on different websites. Do do you remember any of them? Should we
Emanuel:It was Rotten.
Jason:I don't remember.
Emanuel:And I think I don't remember if it started on VHS or if it was a different, a different name when it got online, but it was, like, faces of death is the one that was, like, making the rounds when I was a teen. But do you remember if that was VHS or, like, a
Jason:a Well, I remember Pan Olympics, which we don't That I do. Discuss. That was very, very scary one. I don't know. There's Gore Grish.
Jason:I do remember that one. I I'm, like, looking it up now, bestgore.com. It's like not that we need to to get oh, yeah. Oh, Grish. I remember this one too.
Jason:But it's like this was like a type of content that was on the Internet when and you had to, like, purposefully go to them. And I'm not exactly sure why they were appealing to people, but I just remember being a teenager, and it was something like the idea of, like, a shock site where you saw something really terrifying was popular in my school. And by that, I mean, it was like, are you brave enough to look at this stuff? And I feel like it really did traumatize me at the time to to see some of this stuff. I didn't spend a lot of time on these websites, but I went to them sometimes, and I was very always very disturbed.
Jason:But then, like, to be totally honest, I it's just like there's a desensitizing aspect to scrolling through this stuff for a really long time. And so, I had thought that I had desensitized myself a bit to this type of content. And then scrolling through it again on Instagram last week, I was like, this is super fucked up. Like, I it was very upsetting. And that's what, like, a lot of the comments were about where it's like, why am I seeing this?
Jason:I can't sleep. Like, there are a lot of Reddit posts from, like, children who ended up seeing this sort of thing. And, the difference is that you open up Instagram to, like, look at what your friends are doing or to, like, waste some time scrolling, and you're just being, like, algorithmically fed this horrendous stuff versus, like, purposefully going to a website where you kind of know what you're getting, I guess.
Joseph:Yeah. Yeah. The the yeah. The the there's a big difference between choosing to go to a shock site or, I don't know, your friends peer pressuring you into it and an algorithm feeding it to you. I then think there's almost, like, another two types of content moderation.
Joseph:Like, you brought up the subreddits, which were just trying to keep that content online. And you have two here of Instagram, which is, like, the recommendation algorithm for whatever reason. And we'll talk about what Meta said in a minute. But recommendation algorithm, for whatever reason, is feeding this content to these people basically without their consent. And then there's the other one of, like, wait.
Joseph:This stuff is on Instagram. Like, it it it is online. It's on the platform. The video is literally uploaded to Instagram. So, like, was this content always here and people just didn't see it?
Joseph:Or did they somehow get through? And I and I think it was always there because as as you mentioned, one channel was entirely dedicated to this to this stuff. It's just it was now getting recommended. Yeah.
Jason:Yeah. I mean, there's a few things there. So one, we've talked endlessly about how Meta has loosened its rules on all sorts of things over time, and I think that they've loosened their rules on this as well. Not in this most recent, like, loosening of content moderation standards, but they used to be very good about deleting, like, murder and gore videos, like, many years ago. And one of the reasons they were so good at it was because they employed a lot of content moderators whose job was to look at this stuff and delete it.
Jason:And we'd done reporting about how it was super traumatizing for a lot of these people. A lot of a lot of them have PTSD because all they did all day for, like, eight hours a day or sometimes probably more was look at, like, terrorism videos and look at murder videos and animal, abuse videos and child sexual abuse material and stuff like that and delete it. And so that that was, like, very bad. And then, like, Facebook started moving toward algorithmically trying to delete this stuff. And whether they've had success with that, I don't super know.
Jason:And then for a while, they had this idea that you have freedom of I don't know if this is Meta's policy, but there's a there's an idea that you can have, like, freedom of speech, not freedom of reach. And that's where you can post this stuff, but it's gonna get these, content warning flags, and the algorithm is not gonna distribute it widely. And so it can exist on the platform, but it's not supposed to be surfaced to people. And, essentially, what happened last week is something somewhere broke where it was being surfaced to people, and it was being surfaced to people instead of what they normally see on the platform. Like, it was it was being boosted, essentially.
Joseph:Yeah. Before we get to what Meta said happened and their their statement, I was talking about it with someone. And I was this is pure speculation because you were doing the reporting, not me, but I was just chatting about it. And it it's almost like there's this list of things which should not be algorithmically pushed, and a switch flipped. And it pushed all of the things which are explicitly marked as, like, do not boost this in the algorithm or whatever.
Joseph:I don't know. Something happened, obviously, in some form. Just don't know exactly what. Well, what did Meta say? How did they explain it?
Jason:Yeah. The last thing I brought February 26 earlier, and the reason I say that is two years ago, The Washington Post had an article, and this happened two years ago on February 26. So there's no no. I have no idea why, but, like, there is now an entire group of people saying that, like, this happens on February 26 on meta platforms. No reporting to suggest that that's the case.
Jason:But if I've had numerous readers reach out to me and say this has happened on February 26 before, and then one reader reached out and said that her teenager at school heard that Facebook likes to show people fucked up things on February 26, and then it's like a schoolyard rumor. And I've seen that like, anecdotally, I've seen that both on Instagram, on TikTok, and on Reddit. So something about that date has become this, like, rumor Internet. Like, there's nothing to support it. It's just, like, a coincidence, but it is weird that it happened twice sort of thing.
Joseph:Almost goes back to you being in the schoolyard with your friends in the shock sites. It is now a modern Yeah.
Jason:Yeah. Exactly. So but, anyway, so Meta said that an error caused this, like a bug, and that they're sorry. That's that's all they said more or less. I asked for more specifics about what well, what was the bug?
Jason:What was the error? And they said they didn't respond. I don't know. Emmanuel, you had a really good behind the blog about this though where it's like, yes, there may be an error here where the algorithm is surfacing it, but, again, it's like the stuff lives on the platform.
Emanuel:Yeah. I mean, first of all, I think I mean, I don't wanna put words in your mouth. I was shocked that they responded at all. Were you surprised that they responded?
Jason:Oh, I was so so surprised. And they responded to me at, like, 11PM Pacific time also. Which to me means
Emanuel:that it was very bad. Like, we don't know the numbers. I think they could have very easily said something like, you know, some users may have seen videos that we don't want them to see or something like that, but they were like, our bad, we're fixing it, which probably means it was very widespread, which also seems to be key be the case, as we can see from Jason's reporting. The thing I talked about in the behind the blog is that calling in an error is really a misdirection because maybe it is an error for them to serve this stuff to people actively, which appears to be what happened. It is not an error that Instagram is full of content that it's not supposed to allow, that its policies say plainly should not be allowed on Instagram.
Emanuel:That is a direct result of them either being unable or unwilling to moderate their platforms. It's not just Instagram. It's Facebook as well. And we we've documented that over and over and over and over again. It's whether it's not consensual content or scams or pornography that people are just ripping from porn sites and reposting to Instagram.
Emanuel:We have really done a thorough job of documenting that stuff is there. That is not an error. That is that is a result of how they choose to manage their platform.
Joseph:Yeah. Absolutely. Alright. We will leave that there, and, I will play us out. As a reminder, four zero four Media is journalist founded and supported by subscribers.
Joseph:If you do wish to subscribe to four zero four Media and directly support our work, please go to 404media.co. You'll get unlimited access to our articles and an ad free version of this podcast. You also get to listen to the subscribers only section where we talk about a bonus story each week. This podcast is made in partnership with Kaleidoscope. Another way to support us is by leaving a five star rating and review for the podcast.
Joseph:That stuff really helps us out. We've got a lot of those recently. We'll read some out soon. This has been four zero four Media. We'll see you again next week.